EJ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Warren  Gregory 


THE  JUDGE 

REBECCA  WEST 


THE  JUDGE 


BY 

REBECCA  $VEST 

AUTHOB  or  "THE  RETURN  OF  THE  SOLDIER' 


NEW  SUBP  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


THE  JUDGE.    I 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


TO 
THE  MEMORY  OF 

MY  MOTHER 


BOOK  ONE 


"Every a mother  is  a  judge  who  sentences  the 
children  for  the  sins  of  the  father." 


GIF! 


THE  JUDGE 

BOOK  ONE 

CHAPTER  I 


IT  was  not  because  life  was  not  good  enough  that  Ellen 
Melville  was  crying  as  she  sat  by  the  window.  The  world, 
indeed,  even  so  much  of  it  as  could  be  seen  from  her  window, 
was  extravagantly  beautiful.  The  office  of  Mr.  Mactavish 
James,  Writer  to  the  Signet,  was  in  one  of  those  decent  grey 
streets  that  lie  high  on  the  northward  slope  of  Edinburgh  New 
Town,  and  Ellen  was  looking  up  the  side-street  that  opened 
just  opposite  and  revealed,  menacing  as  the  rattle  of  spears, 
the  black  rock  and  bastions  of  the  Castle  against  the  white 
beamless  glare  of  the  southern  sky.  And  it  was  the  hour  of 
the  clear  Edinburgh  twilight,  that  strange  time  when  the  world 
seems  to  have  forgotten  the  sun  though  it  keeps  its  colour; 
it  could  still  be  seen  that  the  moss  between  the  cobblestones 
was  a  wet  bright  green,  and  that  a  red  autumn  had  been  busy 
with  the  wind-nipped  trees,  yet  these  things  were  not  gay,  but 
cold  and  remote  as  brightness  might  be  on  the  bed  of  a  deep 
stream,  fathoms  beneath  the  visitation  of  the  sun.  At  this 
time  all  the  town  was  ghostly,  and  she  loved  it  so.  She  took 
her  mind  by  the  arm  and  marched  it  up  and  down  among  the 
sights  of  Edinburgh,  telling  it  that  to  be  weeping  with  dis- 
content in  such  a  place  was  a  scandalous  turning  up  of  the 
nose  at  good  mercies.  Now  the  Castle  Esplanade,  that  all 
day  had  proudly  supported  the  harsh,  virile  sounds  and  colours 

9 


10  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

of  the  drilling  regiments,  would  show  to  the  slums  its  blank 
surface,  bleached  bone-white  by  the  winds  that  raced  above 
the  city  smoke.  Now  the  Cowgate  and  the  Canongate  would 
be  given  over  to  the  drama  of  the  disorderly  night;  the  slum- 
dwellers  would  foregather  about  the  rotting  doors  of  dead 
men's  mansions  and  brawl  among  the  not  less  brawling  ghosts 
of  a  past  that  here  never  speaks  of  peace,  but  only  of  blood 
and  argument.  And  Holyrood,  under  a  black  bank  sur- 
mounted by  a  low  bitten  cliff,  would  lie  like  the  camp  of  an 
invading  and  terrified  army.  .  .  .  She  stopped  and  said,  "Yon 
about  Holyrood's  a  fine  image  for  the  institution  of  mon- 
archy." For  she  was  a  Suffragette,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to 
be  a  Suffragette  effectively  when  one  is  just  seventeen,  and  she 
spent  much  of  her  time  composing  speeches  which  she  knew 
she  would  always  be  too  shy  to  deliver.  "There  is  a  sinister  air 
about  palaces.  Always  they  appear  like  the  camp  of  an  invad- 
ing army  that  is  uneasy  and  keeps  a  good  look-out  lest  they 
need  shoot.  Remember  they  are  always  ready  to  shoot.  .  .  ." 
She  interrupted  herself  with  a  click  of  annoyance.  "I  see 
myself  standing  on  a  herring-barrel  and  trying  to  hold  -the 
crowd  with  the  like  of  that.  It's  too  literary.  I  always  am. 
I  doubt  I'll  never  make  a  speaker.  'Deed,  I'll  never  be  any- 
thing but  the  wee  typist  that  I  am.  .  .  ."  And  misery  rushed 
in  on  her  mind  again.  She  fell  to  watching  the  succession  of 
little  black  figures  that  huddled  in  their  topcoats  as  they  came 
down  the  side-street,  bent  suddenly  at  the  waist  as  they  came 
to  the  corner  and  met  the  full  force  of  the  east  wind,  and  then 
pulled  themselves  upright  and  butted  at  it  afresh  with  dour 
faces.  The  spectacle  evoked  a  certain  local  pride,  for  such 
inclemencies  were  just  part  of  the  asperity  of  conditions  which 
she  reckoned  as  the  price  one  had  to  pay  for  the  dignity  of 
living  in  Edinburgh ;  which  indeed  gave  it  its  dignity,  since 
to  survive  anything  so  horrible  proved  one  good  rough  stuff 
fit  to  govern  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  chiefly  it  evoked 
desolation.  For  she  knew  none  of  these  people.  In  all  the 
town  there  was  nobody  but  her  mother  who  was  at  all  aware 
of  her.  It  was  six  months  since  she  left  John  Thompson's 
Ladies'  College  in  John  Square,  so  by  this  time  the  teachers 
would  barely  remember  that  she  had  been  strong  in  Latin  and 


CHAPTER    I  THE    JUDGE  11 

mathematics  but  weak  in  French,  and  they  were  the  only  adult 
people  who  had  ever  heard  her  name.  She  wanted  to  be  tre- 
mendously known  as  strong  in  everything  by  personalities 
more  glittering  than  these.  Less  than  that  would  do:  just  to 
see  people's  faces  doing  something  else  than  express  resent- 
ment at  the  east  wind,  to  hear  them  say  something  else  than 
"Twopence"  to  the  tram-conductor.  Perhaps  if  one  once 
got  people  going  there  might  happen  an  adventure  which,  even 
if  one  had  no  part  in  it,  would  be  a  spectacle.  It  was  seven- 
teen years  since  she  had  first  taken  up  her  seat  in  the  world's 
hall  (and  it  was  none  too  comfortable  a  seat),  but  there  was 
still.no  sign  of  the  concert  beginning. 

"Yet,  Lord,  I've  a  lot  to  be  thankful  for !"  breathed  Ellen. 
She  had  this  rich  consciousness  of  her  surroundings,  a  fortui- 
tous possession,  a  mere  congenital  peculiarity  like  her  red  hair 
or  her  white  skin,  which  did  the  girl  no  credit.  It  kept  her 
happy  even  now,  when  from  time  to  time  she  had  to  lick  up 
a  tear  with  the  point  of  her  tongue,  on  the  thin  joy  of  the 
twilight. 

Really  the  world  was  very  beautiful.  She  fell  to  thinking 
of  those  Saturdays  that  she  and  her  mother,  in  the  days  when 
she  was  still  at  school,  had  spent  on  the  Firth  of  Forth.  Very 
often,  after  Mrs.  Melville  had  done  her  shopping  and  Ellen 
had  made  the  beds,  they  packed  a  basket  with  apples  and  sand- 
wiches (for  dinner  out  was  a  terrible  price)  and  they  took  the 
tram  down  the  south  spurs  to  Leith  or  Grantown  to  find  a 
steamer.  Each  port  was  the  dwelling-place  of  romance.  Leith 
was  a  squalid  pack  of  black  streets  that  debouched  on  a  high 
brick  wall  delightfully  surmounted  by  mast-tops,  and  from 
every  door  there  flashed  the  cutlass  gleam  of  the  splendid  sin- 
ister. Number  2,  Sievering  Street,  was  an  opium  den.  It 
was  a  corner  house  with  Nottingham  lace  curtains  and  a  mas- 
sive brown  door  that  was  always  closed.  You  never  would 
have  known  it,  but  that  was  what  it  was.  And  once  Ellen  and 
her  mother  had  come  back  late  and  were  taking  a  short  cut 
through  the  alleys  to  the  terminus  of  the  Edinburgh  trams  (one 
saved  twopence  by  not  taking  the  Leith  trams  and  had  a  sense 
of  recovering  the  cost  of  the  expedition),  and  were  half-way 
down  a  silent  street  when  they  heard  behind  them  flippety- 


12  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  c 

flop,  flippety-flop,  stealthy  and  wicked  as  the  human  foot  ma 
be.  They  turned  and  saw  a  great  black  figure,  humped  but 
still  high,  keeping  step  with  them  a  yard  or  so  behind.  Sev- 
eral times  they  turned,  terrified  by  that  tread,  and  could  make 
nothing  more  of  it,  till  the  rays  of  a  lamp  showed  them  a  tall 
Chinaman  with  a  flat  yellow  face  and  a  slimy  pigtail  drooping 
with  a  dreadful  waggish  school-girlishness  over  the  shoulder 
of  his  blue  nankin  blouse;  and  long  black  eyes  staring  but 
unshining.  They  were  between  the  high  blank  walls  of  ware- 
houses closed  for  the  night.  They  dared  not  run.  Flippety- 
flop,  flippety-flop,  he  came  after  them,  always  keeping  step. 
Leith  Walk  was  a  yellow  glow  a  long  way  off  at  the  end  of 
the  street;  it  clarified  into  naphtha  jets  and  roaring  salesmen 
and  a  crowd  that  slowly  flocked  up  and  down  the  roadway 
and  was  channelled  now  and  then  by  lumbering  lighted  cars; 
it  became  a  protecting  jostle  about  them.  Ellen  turned  and 
saw  the  Chinaman's  flat  face  creased  with  a  grin.  He  had 
been  savouring  the  women's  terror  under  his  tongue,  sucking 
unimaginable  sweetness  and  refreshment  from  it.  Mrs.  Mel- 
ville was  shedding  angry  tears  and  likening  the  Chinese  to  the 
Irish — a,  people  of  whom  she  had  a  low  opinion — (Mr.  Mel- 
ville had  been  an  Irishman) — but  Ellen  felt  much  sympathy 
as  one  might  bestow  upon  some  disappointed  ogre  in  a  fairy 
tale  for  this  exiled  Boxer  who  had  tried  to  get  a  little  homely 
pleasure.  Ellen  found  it  not  altogether  Grantown's  gain  that 
it  was  wholly  uninhabited  by  horror,  being  an  honest  row  of 
fishers'  cottages  set  on  a  road  beside  the  Firth  to  the  west  of 
Leith.  Its  wonder  was  its  pier,  a  granite  road  driving  its 
rough  blocks  out  into  the  tumbling  seas,  the  least  urban  thing 
in  the  world,  that  brought  to  the  mind's  eye  men's  bare  chests 
and  muscle-knotted  arms,  round-mouthed  sea-chanteys,  and 
great  sound  bodies  caught  to  a  wholesome  death  in  the  vicinity 
of  upturned  keels  and  foundered  rust-red  sails  and  the  en- 
gulfing eternal  sterilisation  of  the  salt  green  waves. 

From  either  of  these  places  they  sailed  across  the  Firth:  an 
arm  of  the  sea  that  could  achieve  anything  from  an  end-of-the- 
world  desolation,  when  there  was  snow  on  the  shores  and  the 
water  rolled  black  shining  mountains,  to  a  South  Seasish  bland 
and  tidy  presentation  of  white  and  green  islands  enamelled  on 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  13 

a  blue  channel  under  a  smooth  summer  sky.  Most  often,  for 
it  was  the  cheapest  trip,  they  crossed  to  Aberlady,  where  the 
tall  trees  stood  at  the  sea's  edge,  and  one  could  sit  on  seaweedy 
rocks  in  the  shadow  of  green  leaves.  Last  time  they  had  gone 
it  had  been  one  of  the  "fairs,"  and  men  and  women  were 
dancing  on  the  lawns  that  lay  here  and  there  among  the  wooded 
knolls.  Ellen  had  sat  with  her  feet  in  a  pool  and  watched  the 
dances  over  her  shoulder.  "Mummie,"  she  had  said,  "we  be- 
long to  a  nation  which  keeps  all  its  lightness  in  its  feet,"  and 
Mrs.  Melville  had  made  a  sharp  remark  like  the  ping  of  a  mos- 
quito about  the  Irish.  Sometimes  they  would  walk  along  a 
lane  by  the  beach  to  Burntisland.  There  was  nothing  good 
about  that  except  the  name,  and  a  queer  resemblance  to  fortifi- 
cations in  the  quays,  which  one  felt  might  at  any  moment  be 
manned  by  dripping  mermen  at  war  with  the  landfolk.  There 
they  would  find  a  lurching,  paintless,  broad-bowed  ferry,  its 
funnel  and  metal  work  damascened  by  rust ;  with  the  streamers 
of  the  sunset  high  to  the  north-west,  and  another  tenderer 
sunset  swimming  before  their  prow,  spilling  oily  trails  of 
lemon  and  rose  and  lilac  on  waters  white  with  the  fading  of 
the  meridian  skies,  they  would  sail  back  to  quays  that  mounted 
black  from  troughs  of  gold. 

She  thought  of  it,  still  smiling;  but  the  required  ecstasy, 
that  would  reconcile  her  to  her  hopeless  life,  did  not  come. 
She  waited  for  it  with  a  canny  look  as  she  did  at  home  when 
she  held  a  match  to  the  gas-ring  to  see  if  there  was  another 
shilling  needed  in  the  slot.  The  light  did  not  come.  By  every 
evidence  of  her  sense  she  was  in  the  completest  darkness.  But 
she  did  not  know  what  coin  it  was  that  would  turn  on  the  light 
again.  Before  there  had  been  no  fee  demanded,  but  just  ap- 
preciation of  her  surroundings,  and  that  she  had  always  had 
in  hand;  even  to  an  extent  that  made  her  feel  ridiculous  to 
those  persons,  sufficiently  numerous  in  Edinburgh,  who  re- 
garded their  own  lack  of  it  as  a  sign  of  the  wealth  of  inhibition 
known  as  common  sense,  and  hardly  at  ease  on  a  country  walk 
with  anybody  except  her  mother  or  her  schoolfellow  Rachael 
Wing.  She  thought  listlessly  now  of  their  day-long  excited 
explorations  of  the  Pentland  Hills.  Why  had  that  walk  on 
Christmas  Eve,  two  years  ago,  kept  them  happy  for  a  term? 


14  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

They  had  just  walked  between  the  snow  that  lay  white  on 
the  hills  and  the  snow  that  hung  black  in  the  clouds,  and  had 
seen  no  living  creature  save  the  stray  albatross  that  winged 
from  peak  to  peak.  She  thought  without  more  zest  of  their 
cycle-rides;  though  there  had  been  a  certain  grim  pride  in 
squeezing  forty  miles  a  day  out  of  the  cycle  which,  having 
been  won  in  a  girls'  magazine  competition,  constantly  reminded 
her  of  its  gratuitous  character  by  a  wild  capriciousness.  And 
there  were  occasions  too  which  had  been  sanctified  by  political 
passion.  There  had  been  one  happy  morning  when  Rachael 
and  she  had  ridden  past  Prestonpans,  where  the  fisher-folk 
sat  mending  their  nets  on  the  beach,  and  they  had  eaten  their 
lunch  among  the  wild  rose  thickets  that  tumbled  down  from 
the  road  to  the  sea.  Rachael  had  raised  it  all  to  something  on 
a  much  higher  level  than  an  outing  by  munching  vegetarian 
sandwiches  and  talking  subversively,  for  she  too  was  a  Suf- 
fragette and  a  Socialist,  at  the  great  nine-foot  wall  round  Lord 
Wemyss's  estate,  by  which  they  were  to  cycle  for  some  miles. 
She  pointed  out  how  its  perfect  taste  and  avoidance  of  red 
brick  and  its  hoggish  swallowing  of  tracts  of  pleasant  land 
symbolised  the  specious  charm  and  the  thieving  greed  which 
were  well  known  to  be  the  attributes  of  the  aristocracy. 
Rachael  was  wonderful.  She  was  an  Atheist,  too.  When  she 
was  twelve  she  had  decided  to  do  without  God  for  a  year,  and 
it  had  worked.  Ellen  had  not  got  as  far  as  that.  She  thought 
religion  rather  pretty  and  a  great  consolation  if  one  was  poor. 
Rachael  was  even  poorer  than  Ellen,  but  she  had  an  unbreak- 
able spirit  and  seemed  to  mind  nothing  in  the  world,  not  even 
that  she  never  had  new  clothes  because  she  had  two  elder  sis- 
ters. It  had  always  seemed  so  strange  that  such  a  clever  girl 
couldn't  make  things  with  paper  patterns  as  Ellen  could,  as 
Ellen  had  frequently  done  in  the  past,  as  Ellen  never  wished 
to  do  again.  She  was  filled  with  terror  by  the  thought  that  she 
should  ever  again  pin  brown  paper  out  of  Weldoris  Fashions 
on  to  stuff  that  must  not  on  any  account  run  higher  than  a 
shilling  the  yard;  that  she  should  slash  with  the  big  cutting- 
out  scissors  just  as  Mrs.  Melville  murmured  over  her  shoul- 
der, "I  doubt  you've  read  the  instructions  right.  .  .  ."  What 
was  the  good?  She  was  decaying.  That  was  proven  by  the 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  15 

present  current  of  her  thoughts,  which  had  passed  from  the 
countryside,  towards  which  she  had  always  previously  directed 
her  mind  when  she  had  desired  it  to  be  happy,  as  one  moves 
for  warmth  into  a  southern-facing  room,  and  were  now  dwell- 
ing on  the  mean  life  of  hopeless  thrift  she  and  her  mother  lived 
in  Hume  Park  Square.  She  recollected  admiringly  the  radi- 
ance that  had  been  hers  when  she  was  sixteen;  of  the  way 
she  had  not  minded  more  than  a  wrinkle  between  the  brows 
those  Monday  evenings  when  she  had  to  dodge  among  the 
steamy  wet  clothes  hanging  on  the  kitchen  pulleys  as  she 
cooked  the  supper,  those  Saturday  nights  when  she  and  her 
mother  had  to  wait  for  the  cheap  pieces  at  the  butcher's  among 
a  crowd  that  hawked  and  spat  and  made  jokes  that  were  not 
geniality  but  merely  a  mental  form  of  hawking  and  spitting; 
of  the  way  that  in  those  days  her  attention  used  to  leap  like 
a  lion  on  the  shy  beast  Beauty  hiding  in  the  bush,  the  house- 
wifely briskness  with  which  her  soul  took  this  beauty  and 
simmered  it  in  the  pot  of  meditation  into  a  meal  that  nourished 
life  for  days.  At  the  thought  of  the  premature  senility  that 
had  robbed  her  of  these  accomplishments  now  that  she  was 
seventeen  she  began  again  to  weep.  .  .  . 

The  door  opened  and  Mr.  Mactavish  James  lumbered  in, 
treading  bearishly  on  his  soft  slippers,  and  rubbing  the  gold 
frame  of  his  spectacles  against  his  nose  to  allay  the  irritation 
they  had  caused  by  their  persistent  pressure  during  the  inter- 
view he  had  been  holding  with  the  representative  of  another 
firm :  an  interview  in  which  he  had  disguised  his  sense  of  his 
client's  moral  instability  by  preserving  the  most  impressive 
physical  immobility.  The  air  of  the  room  struck  cold  on  him, 
and  he  went  to  the  fireplace  and  put  on  some  coal,  and  sat 
down  on  a  high  stool  where  he  could  feel  the  warmth.  He 
gloomed  over  it,  pressing  his  hands  on  his  thighs;  decidedly 
Todd  was  in  the  wrong  over  this  right  of  way,  and  Menzies 
&  Lawson  knew  it.  He  looked  dotingly  across  at  Ellen, 
breathed  "Well,  well !" — that  greeting  by  which  Scot  links 
himself  to  Scot  in  a  mutual  consciousness  of  a  prudent  de- 
spondency about  life.  Age  permitted  him,  in  spite  of  his  type, 
to  delight  in  her.  In  his  youth  he  had  turned  his  back  on 
romance,  lest  it  should  dictate  conduct  that  led  away  from 


16  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

prosperity,  or  should  alter  him  in  some  manner  that  would 
prevent  him  from  attaining  that  ungymnastic  dignity  which 
makes  the  respected  townsman.  He  had  meant  from  the  first 
to  end  with  a  paunch.  But  now  wealth  was  inalienably  his 
and  Beauty  could  beckon  him  on  no  strange  pilgrimages,  his 
soul  retraced  its  steps  and  contemplated  this  bright  thing  as 
an  earth  creature  might  creep  to  the  mouth  of  its  lair  and 
blink  at  the  sun.  And  there  was  more  than  that  to  it.  He 
loved  her.  He  had  never  had  enough  to  do  with  pitiful  things 
(his  wife  Elizabeth  had  been  a  banker's  daughter),  and  this 
child  had  come  to  him,  that  day  in  June,  so  white,  so  weak, 
so  chilled  to  the  bone,  for  all  the  summer  heat,  by  her  mon- 
strous ill-usage.  .  .  . 

He  said,  "Nelly,  will  your  mother  be  feared  if  you  stop  and 
take  a  few  notes  for  Mr.  Philip  till  eight  ?  There  is  a  chemist 
body  coming  through  from  the  cordite  works  at  Aberfay  who 
can't  come  in  the  day  but  Saturday  mornings,  and  you  ken  Mr. 
Philip's  away  to  London  for  the  week-end  by  the  8.30,  so  he's 
seeing  him  the  night.  Mr.  Philip  would  be  thankful  if  you'd 
stop." 

"I  will  so,  Mr.  James,"  said  Ellen. 

"You're  sure  your  mother'll  not  be  feared?" 

"What  way  would  my  mother  be  feared,"  said  Ellen,  "and 
me  seventeen  past?" 

"There's  many  a  lassie  who's  found  being  seventeen  no 
protection  from  a  wicked  world."  He  emitted  some  great 
Burns-night  chuckles,  and  kicked  the  fire  to  a  blaze. 

She  said  sternly,  "Take  note,  Mr.  James,  that  I  haven't 
done  a  hand's  turn  this  hour  or  more,  and  that  not  for  want  of 
asking  for  work.  Dear  knows  I  have  my  hand  on  Mr.  Morri- 
son's door-knob  half  the  day." 

Mr.  James  got  up  to  go.  "You're  a  fierce  hussy,  and  mean 
to  be  a  partner  in  the  firm  before  you've  done  with  us." 

"If  I  were  a  man  I  would  be  that." 

"Better  than  that  for  you,  lassie,  better  than  that.  Wait 
till  a  good  man  comes  by." 

She  snorted  at  the  closing  door,  but  felt  that  he  had  come 
near  to  defining  what  she  wanted.  It  was  not  a  good  man 
she  needed,  of  course,  but  nice  men,  nice  women.  She  had 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  17 

often  thought  that  of  late.  Sometimes  she  would  sit  up  in 
bed  and.  stare  through  the  darkness  at  an  imaginary  group  of 
people  whom  she  desired  to  be  with — well-found  people  who 
would  disclose  themselves  to  one  another  with  vivacity  and 
beautiful  results ;  who  in  large  lighted  rooms  would  display  a 
splendid  social  life  that  had  been  previously  nurtured  by  sep- 
arate tender  intimacies  at  hearths  that  were  more  than  grates 
and  fenders,  in  private  picture-galleries  with  wide  spaces  be- 
tween the  pictures,  and  libraries  adorned  with  big-nosed  marble 
busts.  She  knew  that  that  environment  existed  for  she  had 
seen  it.  Once  she  had  gone  to  a  Primrose  League  picnic  in 
the  grounds  of  an  Edinburgh  M.P.'s  country  home  and  the 
secretary  had  taken  her  up  to  the  house.  They  had  waited 
in  a  high,  long  rooni  with  crossed  swords  on  the  walls  wher- 
ever there  were  not  bookshelves  or  the  portraits  of  men  and 
women  so  proud  that  they  had  not  minded  being  painted 
plain,  and  there  were  French  windows  opening  to  a  flagged 
terrace  where  one  could  lean  on  an  ornate  balustrade  and  look 
over  a  declivity  made  sweet  with  many  flowering  trees  to  a 
wooded  cliff  laced  by  a  waterfall  that  seemed,  so  broad  the 
intervening  valley,  to  spring  silently  to  the  bouldered  river- 
bed below.  On  a  white  bearskin,  in  front  of  one  of  the  few 
unnecessary  fires  she  had  ever  seen,  slept  a  boar-hound.  It 
was  a  pity  that  the  books  lying  on  the  great  round  table  were 
mostly  the  drawings  of  Dana  Gibson  and  that  when  the  lady 
of  the  house  came  in  to  speak  to  them  she  proved  to  be  a 
lisping  Jewess,  but  that  could  not  dull  the  pearl  of  the  spec- 
tacle. She  insisted  on  using  the  memory  as  a  guarantee  that 
there  must  exist,  to  occupy  this  environment,  that  imagined 
society  of  thin  men  without  an  Edinburgh  accent,  of  women 
who  were  neither  thin  like  her  schoolmistresses  nor  fat  like 
her  schoolfellows'  mothers  and  whose  hair  had  no  short  ends 
round  the  neck. 

But  sometimes  it  seemed  likely,  and  in  this  sad  twilight  it 
seemed  specially  likely,  that  though  such  people  certainly  ex- 
isted they  had  chosen  some  other  scene  than  Edinburgh,  whose 
society  was  as  poor  and  restricted  as  its  Zoo,  perhaps  for  the 
same  climatic  reason.  It  was  the  plain  fact  of  the  matter  that 
the  most  prominent  citizen  of  Edinburgh  to-day  was  Mary 


18  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

Queen  of  Scots.  Every  time  one  walked  in  the  Old  Town  she 
had  just  gone  by,  beautiful  and  pale  as  though  in  her  veins 
there  flowed  exquisite  blood  that  diffused  radiance  instead  of 
ruddiness,  clad  in  the  black  and  white  that  must  have  been  a 
more  solemn  challenge,  a  more  comprehensive  announcement 
of  free  dealings  with  good  and  evil,  than  the  mere  extrava- 
gance of  scarlet  could  have  been;  and  wearing  a  string  of 
pearls  to  salve  the  wound  she  doubtless  always  felt  about  her 
neck.  Ellen  glowed  at  the  picture  as  girls  do  at  womanly 
beauty.  Nobody  of  a  like  intensity  had  lived  here  since.  The 
Covenanters,  the  Jacobites,  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  his  fellows, 
had  dropped  nothing  in  the  pool  that  could  break  the  ripples 
started  by  that  stone,  that  precious  stone,  flung  there  from 
France  so  long  ago.  The  town  had  settled  down  into  some- 
thing that  the  tonic  magic  of  the  place  prevented  being  decay, 
but  it  was  though  time  still  turned  the  hour-glass,  but  did  it 
dreamingly,  infatuated  with  the  marvellous  thing  she  had 
brought  forth  that  now  was  not.  So  greatly  had  the  play  de- 
clined in  plot  and  character  since  Mary's  time  that  for  the 
catastrophe  of  the  present  age  there  was  nothing  better  than 
the  snatching  of  the  Church  funds  from  the  U.F.'s  by  the 
Wee  Frees.  It  appeared  to  her  an  indication  of  the  quality 
of  the  town's  life  that  they  spoke  of  their  churches  by  initials 
just  as  the  English,  she  had  learned  from  the  Socialist  papers, 
spoke  of  their  trade  unions.  And  for  personalities  there  were 
innumerable  clergymen  and  Sir  Thomas  Gilzean,  Edinburgh's 
romantic  draper,  who  talked  French  with  a  facility  that  his 
fellow  townsmen  suspected  of  being  a  gift  acquired  on  the 
brink  of  the  pit,  and  who  had  a  long  wriggling  waist  which 
suggested  that  he  was  about  to  pick  up  the  tails  of  his  elegant 
frock-coat  and  dance.  He  was  light  indeed,  but  not  enough 
to  express  the  lightness  of  which  life  was  capable;  while  the 
darker  side  of  destiny  was  as  inadequately  represented  by 
^Eneas  Walkinshaw,  the  last  Jacobite,  whom  at  the  very 
moment  Ellen  could  see  standing  under  the  lamp-post  at  the 
corner,  in  the  moulting  haberdashery  of  his  wind-draggled  kilts 
and  lace  ruffles,  cramming  treasonable  correspondence  into  a 
pillar-box  marked  G.R.  .  .  .  She  wanted  people  to  be  as 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  19 

splendid  as  the  countryside,  as  noble  as  the  mountains,  as 
variable  within  the  limits  of  beauty  as  the  Firth  of  Forth, 
and  this  was  what  they  were  really  like.  She  wept  undis- 
guisedly. 

ii 

"What  ails  you,  Miss  Melville?"  asked  Mr.  Philip  James. 
He  had  lit  the  gas  and  seen  that  she  was  crying. 

At  first  she  said,  "Nothing."  But  there  grew  out  of  her 
gratitude  to  this  family  a  feeling  that  it  was  necessary,  or  at 
least  decent,  that  she  should  always  answer  them  with  the 
cleanest  candour.  As  one  rewards  the  man  who  has  restored 
a  lost  purse  by  giving  him  some  of  the  coins  in  it,  so  she  shared 
with  them,  by  the  most  exact  explanation  of  her  motives  when- 
ever they  were  asked  for,  the  self  which  they  had  saved.  So 
she  added,  "It's  just  that  I'm  bored.  Nothing  ever  happens 
to  me!" 

Mr.  Philip  had  hoped  she  was  going  to  leave  it  at  that 
"Nothing,"  and  bore  her  a  grudge  for  her  amplification  at  the 
same  time  that  the  way  she  looked  when  she  made  it  swept 
him  into  sympathy.  Indeed,  he  always  felt  about  the  lavish 
gratitude  with  which  Ellen  laid  her  personality  at  the  disposal 
of  the  firm  rather  as  the  Englishman  who  finds  the  Chinaman 
whom  he  saved  from  death  the  day  before  sitting  on  his  veran- 
dah in  the  expectation  of  being  kept  for  the  rest  of  his  life 
that  his  rescuer  has  forced  upon  him.  It  was  true  that  she 
was  an  excellent  shorthand-typist,  but  she  vexed  the  decent 
grey  by  her  vividness.  The  sight  of  her  through  an  open  door, 
sitting  at  her  typewriter  in  her  blue  linen  overall,  dispersed 
one's  thoughts;  it  was  as  if  a  wireless  found  its  waves  jammed 
by  another  instrument.  Often  he  found  himself  compelled  to 
abandon  his  train  of  ideas  and  apprehend  her  experiences :  to 
feel  a  little  tired  himself  if  she  drooped  over  her  machine,  to 
imagine,  as  she  pinned  on  her  tam-o'-shanter  and  ran  down 
the  stairs,  how  the  cold  air  would  presently  prick  her  smooth 
skin.  Yet  these  apprehensions  were  quite  uncoloured  by  any 
emotional  tone.  It  was  simply  that  she  was  essentially  con- 
spicuous, that  one  had  to  watch  her  as  one  watches  a  very 


20  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

tall  man  going  through  a  crowd.  Even  now,  instead  of  reg- 
istering disapproval  at  her  moodiness,  he  was  looking  at  her 
red  hair  and  thinking  how  it  radiated  flame  through  the  twi- 
light of  her  dark  corner,  although  in  the  sunlight  it  always 
held  the  softness  of  the  dusk.  That  was  characteristic  of  her 
tendency  always  to  differ  from  the  occasion.  He  had  once 
seen  her  at  a  silly  sort  of  picnic  where  everybody  was  making 
a  great  deal  of  noise  and  playing  rounders,  and  she  had  sat 
alone  under  a  tree.  And  once,  as  he  was  walking  along  Princes 
Street  on  a  cruel  day  when  there  was  an  easterly  ha'ar  blowing 
off  the  Firth,  she  had  stepped  towards  him  out  of  the  drizzle, 
not  seeing  him  but  smiling  sleepily.  It  was  strange  how  he 
remembered  all  these  things,  for  he  had  never  liked  her  very 
much. 

He  put  his  papers  on  the  table  and  sat  down  by  the  fire. 
"Well,  what  should  happen?  No  news  is  good  news  I've 
heard r 

She  continued  to  disclose  herself  to  him  without  the  im- 
pediment of  shyness,  for  he  was  unattractive  to  her  because 
he  had  an  Edinburgh  accent  and  always  carried  an  umbrella. 
He  was  so  like  hundreds  of  young  men  in  the  town,  dark  and 
sleek-headed  and  sturdily  under-sized,  with  an  air  of  sagacity 
and  consciously  shrewd  eyes  under  a  projecting  brow,  that  it 
seemed  like  uttering  one's  complaint  before  a  jury  or  some 
other  representative  body.  She  believed,  too,  that  he  was  not 
one  of  the  impeccable  and  happy  to  whom  one  dare  not  disclose 
one's  need  for  pity,  for  she  was  sure  that  the  clipped  speech 
that  slid  through  his  half-opened  mouth  was  a  sign  that  se- 
cretly he  was  timid  and  ashamed.  So  she  cried  honestly, 
"I'm  so  dull  that  I'll  die.  You  and  Mr.  James  are  awfully 
good  to  me,  and  I  can  put  up  with  Mr.  Morrison,  though  he's 
a  doited  old  thing,  and  I  like  my  work,  but  coming  here  in 
the  morning  and  going  home  at  night,  day  in  and  day  out,  it 
drives  me  crazy.  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me, 
but  I  want  to  run  away  to  new  places  and  see  new  people. 
This  morning  I  was  running  to  catch  the  tram  and  I  saw  the 
old^wife  who^lives  in  the  wee  house  by  the  cycle  shop  had  put 
a  bit  heather  in  a  glass  bottle  at  the  window,  and  do  you  know, 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  21 

I  was  near  turning  my  back  and  going  off  to  the  Pentlands 
and  letting  the  work  go  hang!" 

They  were  both  law-abiding  people.  They  saw  the  gravity 
of  her  case. 

"Not  that  I  want  the  Pentlands.  Dear  knows  I  love  the 
place,  but  I  want  something  more  than  those  old  hills.  I  want 
to  go  somewhere  right  far  away.  The  sight  of  a  map  makes 
me  sick.  And  then  I  hear  a  band  play — not  the  pipes,  they 
make  me  think  of  Walter  Scott's  poetry,  which  I  never  could 
bear,  but  a  band.  I  feel  that  if  I  followed  it  it  would  lead  me 
somewhere  that  I  would  like  to  go.  And  the  posters.  There's 
one  at  the  Waverley  station — Venice.  I  could  tear  the  thing 
down.  Did  you  ever  go  to  Italy,  Mr.  Philip?" 

"No.     I  go  with  the  girls  to  Germany  every  summer." 

"My  patience!"  said  Ellen  bitterly.  "The  way  the  world 
is !  The  people  who  can  afford  to  go  to  Italy  go  to  Germany. 
And  I— I'll  die  if  I  don't  get  away." 

"Och,  I  often  feel  like  this,"  said  Mr.  Philip.  "I  just  take 
a  week-end  off  at  a  hydro." 

"A  hydro !"  snorted  Ellen.  "It's  something  more  like  the 
French  Revolution  I'm  wanting.  Something  grand  and  col- 
oured. Swords,  and  people  being  rescued,  and  things  like 
that." 

"There's  nothing  going  on  like  that  now,"  he  said  stolidly, 
"and  we  ought  to  be  thankful  for  it." 

"I  know  everything's  over  in  Europe,"  she  agreed  sadly, 
"but  there's  revolutions  in  South  America.  I've  read  about 
them  in  Richard  Harding  Davis.  Did  ever  you  read  him? 
Mind  you,  I'm  not  saying  he's  an  artist,  but  the  man  has 
force.  He  makes  you  long  to  go." 

"A  dirty  place,"  said  Mr.  Philip. 

"What  does  that  matter,  where  there's  life?  I  feel — I 
feel" — she  wrung  her  inky  brown  hands — "as  if  I  should  die 
if  something  didn't  happen  at  once :  something  big,  something 
that  would  bang  out  like  the  one  o'clock  gun  up  at  the  Castle. 
And  nothing  will.  Nothing  ever  will!" 

"Och,  well,"  he  comforted  her,  "you're  young  yet,  you 
know." 


22  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"Young!"  cried  Ellen,  and  suddenly  wept.  If  this  was 
youth ! 

He  bent  down  and  played  with  the  fire-irons.  It  was  odd 
how  he  didn't  want  to  go  away,  although  she  was  in  distress. 
"Some  that's  been  in  South  America  don't  find  it  to  their  taste," 
he  said.  "The  fellow  that's  coming  to-night  wants  to  sell  some 
property  in  Rio  de  Janeiro  because  he  doesn't  mean  to  go 
back." 

"Ah,  how  can  he  do  that?"  asked  Ellen  unsteadily.  The 
tears  she  was  too  proud  to  wipe  away  made  her  look  like  a 
fierce  baby.  "Property  in  Rio  de  Janeiro!  It's  like  being  re- 
lated to  someone  in  'Treasure  Island.' " 

1  Treasure  Island !'  Imph !"  He  had  seen  his  father  draw 
Ellen  often  enough  to  know  how  to  do  it,  though  he  himself 
would  never  have  paid  enough  attention  to  her  mental  life  to 
discover  it.  "You're  struck  on  that  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
but  he  wasn't  so  much.  My  Aunt  Phemie  was  with  him  at 
Mr.  Robert  Thompson's  school  in  Heriot  Row,  and  she  says 
he  was  an  awful  young  blackguard,  playing  with  the  keelies  all 
he  could  and  gossiping  with  the  cabmen  on  the  rank.  She 
wouldn't  have  a  word  to  say  to  him,  and  grandfather  would 
never  ask  him  to  the  house,  not  even  when  all  the  English  were 
licking  his  boots.  I'm  not  much  on  these  writing  chaps  my- 
self." He  made  scornful  noises  and  crossed  his  legs  as  though 
he  had  disposed  of  art. 

"And  who,"  asked  Ellen,  with  temper,  "might  your  Aunt 
Phemie  be?  There'll  not  be  much  in  the  papers  when  she's 
laid  by  in  Trinity  Cemetery,  I'm  thinking !  The  impairtinence 
of  it !  All  these  Edinburgh  people  ought  to  go  on  their  knees 
and  thank  their  Maker  that  just  once,  just  once  in  that  gen- 
eration, He  let  something  decent  come  out  of  Edinburgh!" 
She  turned  away  from  him  and  laid  her  cheek  against  the  oak 
shutter. 

Mr.  Philip  chuckled.  When  a  woman  did  anything  for  itself, 
and  not  for  its  effect  on  the  male,  it  seemed  to  him  a  proof  of 
her  incapacity  to  look  after  herself,  and  he  found  incapacity 
in  women  exciting  and  endearing.  He  watched  her  with  a 
hard  attention  that  was  his  kind  of  tenderness,  as  she  sat 
humped  schoolgirlishly  in  her  shapeless  blue  overall,  averting 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  23 

her  face  from  the  light  but  attempting  a  proud  pose,  and 
keeping  her  grief  between  her  teeth  as  an  ostler  chews  a  straw. 

"He  had  a  good  time,  the  way  he  travelled  in  France  and 
the  South  Seas.  But  he  deserved  it.  He  wrote  such  lovely 
books.  Ah,"  she  said,  listening  to  her  own  sombre  interpre- 
tation of  things  as  to  sad  music,  "it  isn't  just  chance  that  some 
people  had  adventures  and  others  hadn't.  One  makes  one's 
own  fate.  I  have  no  fate  because  I'm  too  weak  to  make  one." 
She  looked  down  resentfully  on  her  hands,  that  for  all  her 
present  fierceness  and  the  inkstains  of  her  daily  industry  lay 
little  things  on  her  lap,  and  thought  of  Rachael  Wing,  who 
had  so  splendidly  departed  to  London  to  go  on  the  stage.  "But 
it's  hard  to  be  punished  just  for  what  you  are." 

He  wondered  whether,  although  she  was  the  typist,  there 
was  not  something  rare  about  her.  He  could  not  compare  her 
in  this  moment  with  his  sisters  May  and  Gracie,  who  were 
always  getting  up  French  plays  for  bazaars,  or  Chrissie,  who 
played  the  violin,  for  the  earth  held  nothing  to  vex  the  sturdi- 
ness  of  these  young  women  except  the  profligacy  with  which  it 
offered  its  people  attractions  competitive  with  bazaars  and 
violin  solos.  But  he  thought  it  unlikely  that  any  occasion 
would  have  evoked  from  them  this  serene  despair,  which  was 
no  more  irritable  than  that  which  is  known  by  the  nightingale. 
It  was  impossible  that  they  could  shed  such  tears  as  smudged 
her  bright  colours  now,  such  exquisite  distillations  of  innocent 
grief  at  the  wasting  of  the  youth  of  which  she  was  so  innocently 
proud,  and  generous  rage  at  the  decrying  of  a  name  that  was 
neither  relative  nor  friend  nor  employer  but  merely  a  maker 
of  beauty.  Without  doubt  she  lived  in  a  lonely  world,  where 
tears  were  shed  for  other  things  than  the  gift  of  gold,  and 
where  one  could  perform  these  simplicities  before  a  witness 
without  fear  of  contempt,  because  human  intercourse  went 
only  to  the  tune  of  charity  and  pity.  Suddenly  he  wanted  to 
enter  into  this  world ;  not  indeed  with  the  intention  of  natural- 
ising himself  as  its  inhabitant  nor  with  the  intention  of  stay- 
ing there  for  ever,  but  as  a  navvy  might  stop  on  his  way  to 
work  and  refresh  his  horny  sweating  body  by  a  swim  in  a 
sunny  pool.  He  felt  a  thirst,  a  thing  that  stopped  the  breath 
for  her  pity.  And  although  his  desire  was  but  for  participa- 


24  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


lion  in  kindness,  his  instinct  for  conformity  was  so  suspicious 
of  her  vividness  that  he  felt  furtive  and  red-eared  while  he 
searched  in  the  purse  of  his  experiences  to  find  the  coin 
that  would  admit  him  to  her  world.  The  search  at  first  was 
vain,  for  most  of  them  that  he  cared  to  remember  were  mere 
manifestations  of  the  kind  of  qualities  that  are  mentioned  in 
testimonials.  But  presently  he  gripped  the  disappointment  that 
would  buy  him  her  pity. 

He  said,  "I'm  right  sorry  for  you,  Miss  Melville.  But  you 
know  .  .  .  We  all  have  our  troubles." 

She  raised  her  eyebrows. 

"I  wanted  to  go  into  the  Navy." 

"You  did?  Would  your  father  not  let  you?"  She  said  it 
in  her  red-headed  "My-word-if-I'd-been-there"  way. 

"Aye,  he  would  have  liked  it  fine." 

"What  was  it  then?"  She  leaned  forward  and  almost 
crooned  at  him.  "What  was  it  then?" 

His  speech  became  more  clipped.    "My  eyes." 

"Your  eyes!"  she  breathed.  He  suddenly  became  a  person 
to  her.  "I  never  thought." 

"I'm  as  short-sighted  as  a  bat." 

"They  look  all  right."  She  frowned  at  them  as  though  they 
were  traitors. 

He  basked  in  her  pity.  "They're  not.  I  never  could  play 
football  at  the  University." 

She  rose  and  stood  beside  him  at  the  table,  so  that  he  would 
feel  how  sorry  she  was,  and  set  one  finger  to  her  lips  and  mur- 
mured, "Well,  well !"  and  at  the  end  of  a  warm,  drowsy  mo- 
ment, after  which  they  seemed  to  know  each  other  much 
better,  she  said  softly  and  irrelevantly,  "I  saw  you  capped." 

"Did  you  so?  How  did  you  notice  me?  It  was  one  of  the 
big  graduations." 

"I  went  with  my  mother  to  see  my  cousin  Jeanie  capped 
M.A.,  and  we  saw  your  name  on  the  list.  Philip  Mactavish 
James.  And  mother  said,  'Yon'll  be  the  son  of  Mactavish 
James.  Many's  the  time  I've  danced  with  him  when  I  was 
Ellen  Forbes.'  Funny  to  think  of  them  dancing !" 

"Oh,  father  was  a  great  man  for  the  ladies."    They  both 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  25 

laughed.  He  vacillated  from  the  emotional  business  of  the 
moment  "Do  you  dance?"  he  asked. 

"I  did  at  school " 

"Don't  you  go  to  dances?" 

She  shook  her  head.  It  was  a  shame,  thought  Mr.  Philip. 
With  that  long  slender  waist  she  should  have  danced  so  beauti- 
fully; he  could  imagine  how  her  head  would  droop  back  and 
show  her  throat,  how  her  brows  would  become  grave  with 
great  pleasure.  He  wished  she  could  come  to  his  mother's 
dances,  but  he  knew  so  well  the  rigid  standards  of  his  own 
bourgeoisie  that  he  felt  displeased  by  his  wish.  It  was  im- 
possible to  ask  a  Miss  Melville  to  a  dance  unless  one  could 
say,  'She's  the  daughter  of  old  Mr.  Melville  in  Moray  Place. 
Do  you  not  mind  Melville,  the  wine  merchant?'  and  specially 
impossible  to  ask  this  Miss  Melville  unless  one  had  some  such 
certificate  to  attach  to  her  vividness.  But  he  wished  he  could 
dance  with  her. 

Ellen  recalled  him  to  the  business  of  pity.  She  had  thought 
of  dances  for  no  more  than  a  minute,  though  it  had  long  been 
one  of  her  dreams  to  enter  a  ballroom  by  a  marble  staircase 
(which  she  imagined  of  a  size  and  steepness  really  more  suited 
to  a  water-chute),  carrying  a  black  ostrich-feather  fan  such 
as  she  had  seen  Sarah  Bernhardt  pythoning  about  with  in  "La 
Dame  aux  Camelias."  This  hour  she  had  dedicated  to  Mr. 
Philip,  and  he  knew  it.  She  was  thinking  of  him  with  an  in- 
tentness  which  was  associated  with  an  entire  obliviousness  of 
his  personal  presence,  just  as  a  church  circle  might  pray  fer- 
vently for  some  missionary  without  attempting  to  visualise 
his  face;  and  though  he  missed  this  quaint  meaning  of  her 
abstraction,  he  was  well  content  to  watch  it  and  nurse  his 
private  satisfaction.  He  was  still  aware  that  he  was  Mr. 
Philip  of  the  firm,  so  he  was  not  going  to  tell  her  that  for  two 
nights  after  he  had  heard  the  decision  of  the  Medical  Exam- 
iners he  had  cried  himself  to  sleep,  though  he  was  fourteen 
past.  But  it  was  exquisite  to  know  that  if  he  had  told  her 
she  would  have  been  moved  to  some  glorious  gesture  of  pity. 
His  imagination  trembled  at  the  thought  of  its  glory  as  she 
turned  to  him  with  a  benignity  that  was  really  good  enough, 


26  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

and  said  diffidently,  because  her  ambition  was  such  a  holy 
thing  that  she  feared  to  speak  of  his :  "Still,  there  are  lots  of 
things  for  you  to  do.  I've  heard  .  .  ." 

He  was  kindly  and  indulgent.     "What  have  you  heard?" 

Ellen  had,  as  her  mother  used  to  say,  a  great  notion  of 
politics.  "Why,  that  you're  going  tc  stand  for  Parliament." 

"That's  true  enough,"  he  said,  swelling  a  little. 

"Could  anything  be  finer?"  she  breathed.  "What  are  you 
going  to  do?" 

"I'll  have  to  contest  two-three  hopeless  seats.  Then  they'll 
give  me  something  safe." 

"But  what  will  you  do?" 

He  didn't  follow. 

"What'll  you  do  after  that?"  She  towered  above  him,  her 
cheeks  flushed  with  intellectual  passion.  "In  Parliament,  I 
mean.  There's  so  much  to  do.  Will  it  be  housing?  If  it  was 
me  it  would  be  housing.  But  what  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"I'll  sit  as  a  Liberal,"  he  said,  with  an  air  of  quiet  com- 
petence. "We've  always  been  Liberals." 

"Ach!  Liberal!"  she  said,  with  the  spirit  of  one  who  had 
cried,  "Keep  the  Liberal  out!"  at  a  Leith  polling-booth  and 
had  been  haled  backwards  by  the  hair  from  the  person  of  Mr. 
Winston  Churchill.  Mr.  Philip  laughed  again  and  felt  a  kind 
of  glow.  He  never  could  get  over  a  feeling  that  to  discover  a 
woman  excited  about  an  intellectual  thing  was  like  coming  on 
her  bathing;  her  cast-off  femininity  affected  him  as  a  heap  of 
her  clothes  on  the  beach  might  have  done.  But  the  flash  in 
her  eyes  died  to  the  homelier  fires  of  a  more  personal  quarrel. 
"Is  yon  Mrs.  Powell's  heavy  feet  coming  up  the  stair?"  she 
enquired. 

"It  is  so.  I  asked  her  to  do  a  chop  for  me,  so  that  I  won't 
need  to  dine  on  the  train.  .  .  ." 

"Mercy  me !  We'll  see  the  fine  cook  she  is !"  She  ran  out 
to  the  landing  (she  had  never  known  he  was  so  nice).  Mr. 
Philip  found  that  her  absence  acted  curiously  as  a  relief  to  an 
excitement  that  was  beginning  to  buzz  in  his  head.  Then  she 
came  back  with  the  tray,  her  cheeks  bright  and  her  mouth 
pursed,  for  she  and  the  caretaker  had  been  sandpapering  each 
other's  temperaments  with  a  few  words.  "Be  thankful  she 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  27 

thought  to  boil  a  potato.  No  greens.  And  I  had  to  ask  for  a 
bit  bread.  And  the  reason's  not  far  to  seek.  She's  had  a  drop 
again.  It  staggers  me  how  your  father,  who's  so  particular 
with  the  rest  of  us,  stands  such  a  body  in  the  place." 

He  did  not  answer  her.  The  moment  had  become  one  of 
pure  enjoyment.  There  was  no  sense  of  strain  in  his  apprecia- 
tion of  her  while  she  was  putting  down  the  tray,  spreading 
out  the  plates,  and  doing  things  that  were  all  directed  to  giv- 
ing him  comfort.  Their  relationship  felt  absolutely  right. 

"Will  you  have  one  of  the  bottles  of  Burgundy  your  father 
keeps  for  when  he  lunches  in?"  she  said. 

"I  was  just  thinking  I  would,"  he  answered,  and  went  into 
his  father's  room.  As  he  stooped  before  the  cupboard  her 
voice  reached  him,  fortuitously  uplifted  in  "The  Flowers  of 
the  Forest  are  a'  wede  away."  Now  how  did  she  look  when 
she  sang?  It  improved  some  people.  He  knelt  for  a  minute 
in  front  of  the  dusty  cupboard,  frowning  fiercely  at  the  bottles 
because  it  struck  him  that  she  would  stop  singing  when  he  went 
back,  and  he  could  think  of  no  way  of  asking  her  to  go  on  that 
would  not  be,  as  he  put  it,  infra  dig.  And  sure  enough,  when 
he  entered  the  room  a  shy  silence  fell  on  her,  which  she  broke 
by  saying,  "If  you've  not  got  the  corkscrew  there's  one  on  my 
pocket-knife."  He  used  it,  telling  himself  that  it  spared  turn- 
ing on  the  gas  again  in  the  other  room,  and  she  stood  behind 
him  murmuring,  "Yon's  not  a  bad  knife.  Four  blades  and  a 
thing  that  takes  stones  out  of  a  horse's  hoof.  .  .  ." 

He  sat  down  to  his  meal,  and  she  remained  by  the  fireplace 
until  he  said,  "Pray  sit  down,  Miss  Melville,  I  wish  I  could 
ask  you  to  join  me.  .  .  ." 

She  obeyed  because  she  was  afraid  she  might  be  fretting 
him  by  standing  there,  and  took  the  seat  on  the  other  side  of 
the  table.  The  gas-jet  was  behind  her,  so  to  him  there  was  a 
gold  halo  about  her  head  and  her  face  was  a  dusky  oval  in 
which  her  eyes  and  the  three-cornered  patch  of  her  mouth  were 
points  of  ardour.  She  had  an  animal's  faculty  for  keeping 
quite  still.  He  felt  a  pricking  appetite  to  force  the  moment  on 
to  something  he  could  not  quite  previsage,  and  found  himself 
saying,  "Will  you  have  some  Burgundy?" 

She  was  shocked.    "Oh  no !" 


28  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

He  perceived  that  here  was  a  matter  of  principle.  But  he 
felt,  although  principles  were  among  his  conventions,  not  the 
least  impulse  to  defer  to  it.  Instead,  the  project  of  persuading 
her  to  do  something  he  felt  she  oughtn't  to  do  flooded  him 
with  a  tingling  pleasure. 

He  said,  "But  it's  so  pretty!"  He  could  not  imagine  why 
he  should  have  said  that,  and  yet  he  knew  when  he  had  said 
it  that  he  had  hit  on  an  argument  that  would  weigh  with  her. 

She  sighed  as  who  makes  a  concession.  "Oh  yes,  it's  pretty !" 
And  then,  to  his  perplexity,  her  face  fell  into  complete  repose 
She  was  absorbed  in  the  red  beauty  in  his  glass. 

It  angered  him,  yet  he  still  felt  bland  and  coaxing.  "You'll 
have  a  glass?" 

"No,  thank  you." 

"You'll  surely  have  a  taste?" 

"Ah,  no " 

"Just  a  drop  .  .  ." 

Their  eyes  met.  He  was  peering  into  her  face  so  that  he 
could  be  sure  she  was  looking  at  him,  and  somehow  the  grimace 
seemed  to  be  promising  her  infinite  pleasure. 

She  muttered,  "Well,  just  a  drop!"  and  found  herself 
laughing  unhappily. 

He  passed  her  his  glass. 

"But  what,"  she  asked  in  dismay,  "will  you  drink  from?" 

Almost  irritably  he  clicked  his  tongue,  though  he  still  smiled. 
"Drink  it  up !  Drink  it  up !" 

She  raised  the  glass  to  her  lips  and  set  her  head  back  that 
the  sin  might  have  swift  progress,  expecting  the  loveliest  thing, 
like  an  ice,  but  warm  and  very  worldly;  and  informed  with 
solemn  pleasure  too,  for  such  colours  are  spilt  on  marble  floors 
when  the  sun  sets  behind  cathedral  windows,  such  colours 
come  into  the  mind  when  great  music  is  played  or  some  deep 
voice  speaks  Shakespeare.  .  .  . 

"Ach!"  she  screamed,  and  banged  the  glass  down  on  the 
table.  "It's  horrid !  It  draws  the  mouth !"  She  started  up 
and  stood  rubbing  her  knuckles  into  her  cheeks  and  twisting 
her  lips.  She  had  never  thought  wine  was  like  this.  It  was 
not  so  much  a  drink  as  a  blow  in  the  mouth.  And  yet  some- 
how she  felt  ashamed  of  not  liking  it.  "The  matron  at 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  29 

school  used  to  give  us  something  for  toothache  that  was  as 
bad  as  this !"  she  said  peevishly,  and  tears  stood  in  her  eyes. 

Mr.  Philip  stood  up,  laughing.  The  crisis  of  his  pleasure  in 
persuading  her  to  do  the  thing  which  she  hadn't  wanted  to 
do  was  his  joy  that  she  hadn't  liked  it  when  she  had  done  it. 
And  suddenly  one  of  the  walls  of  the  neat  mental  chamber  in 
which  he  customarily  stood  fell  in;  by  the  light  that  streamed 
in  upon  him  he  perceived  that  his  ecstasy  was  only  just  be- 
ginning. At  last  he  knew  what  he  wanted  to  do.  With  gusto 
he  marked  that  Ellen  too  was  conscious  that  the  incident  was 
not  at  its  close,  for  she  was  still  wringing  her  hands,  though 
the  taste  of  the  wine  must  long  have  gone  from  her  mouth, 
and  was  stammering  miserably,  "Well,  if  yon  stuff's  a  temp- 
tation to  any  poor  folk !"  Again  he  felt  that  their  rela- 
tionship was  on  a  proper  footing;  he  moved  towards  her, 
walking  masterfully.  Oh,  it  was  going  to  be  ecstasy.  .  .  . 

There  was  a  loud  knocking  at  the  outer  door. 


in 

She  forgot  all  about  the  wine  at  once,  he  was  so  very  big. 
And  he  looked  as  though  he  had  gold  rings  in  his  ears,  although 
he  hadn't;  it  was  just  part  of  his  sea-going  air. 

He  looked  at  her  very  hard  and  said  as  though  it  hardly 
mattered,  "I  want  to  see  Mr.  James.  My  name's  Yaverland." 

"Will  you  step  inside?"  said  Ellen,  with  her  best  English 
accent.  "Mr.  Philip's  expecting  you."  She  was  glad  he  had 
come,  for  he  looked  interesting,  but  she  hoped  he  would  not 
interrupt  her  warm  comfortable  occupation  of  mothering  Mr. 
Philip.  To  keep  that  mood  aglow  in  herself  she  stopped  as 
they  went  along  the  passage  and  begged,  "You'll  not  make  him 
miss  his  train?  He's  away  to  London  to-night.  He  should 
leave  here  on  the  very  clap  of  eight." 

The  stranger  seemed,  after  a  moment's  silence,  of  which, 
since  they  stood  in  darkness,  she  could  not  read  the  cause,  to 
lay  aside  a  customary  indifference  for  the  sake  of  the  gravity 
of  the  occasion.  "Oh,  certainly;  he  shall  leave  on  the  very 
clap  of  eight,"  he  replied  earnestly. 

He  spoke  without  an  accent  and  was  most  -romantically 


30  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

dark.  Ellen  wondered  whether  Mr.  Philip  would  like  him — 
she  had  noticed  that  Mr.  Philip  didn't  seem  to  fancy  people 
who  were  very  tall.  And  she  perceived  with  consternation  as 
they  entered  the  room  that  he  had  suddenly  been  overtaken 
by  one  of  his  moods.  He  had  taken  up  the  tray  and  was 
trying  to  slip  it  into  the  cupboard,  which  he  might  have  seen 
would  never  hold  it,  and  in  any  case  was  a  queer  place  for  a 
tray,  and  stood  there  with  it  in  his  hands,  brick-red  and  glower 
ing  at  them.  She  was  going  to  take  it  from  him  when  he 
dunted  it  down  on  the  window-seat  with  a  clatter.  "What  for 
can  he  not  go  on  with  his  good  chop  ?"  thought  Ellen.  "We're 
putting  on  grand  company  manners  for  this  bit  chemist  body, 
surely,"  and  she  pulled  forward  a  chaii  for  the  stranger  and 
sat  down  in  the  corner  with  her  note-book  on  her  knee. 

"You're  Mr.  Yaverland?"  said  Mr.  Philip,  shooting  his 
chin  forward  and  squaring  his  shoulders,  and  looking  as 
though  his  father  were  dead  and  he  were  the  head  of  the  firm. 

"I'm  Richard  Yaverland.  Mr.  Frank  Gibson  said  you 
might  be  good  enough  to  see  to  my  affairs  for  me.  I've  got  a 
letter  from  him.  .  .  ." 

Decidedly  the  man  had  an  air.  He  slid  the  letter  across  the 
table  as  if  he  did  not  care  in  the  least  whether  anybody  ever 
picked  it  up  and  retreated  into  a  courteous  inattention.  She 
felt  a  little  cross  at  Mr.  Philip  for  not  showing  that  Edinburgh 
too  understands  the  art  of  arrogance,  for  opening  the  letter  so 
clumsily  and  omitting  to  say  the  nice  friendly  thing.  Well,  if 
he  was  put  about  it  was  his  own  fault  for  not  going  on  with 
the  chop,  it  being  well  known  to  all  educated  persons  that  one 
cannot  work  on  an  empty  stomach.  If  this  man  would  go  soon 
she  would  run  down  to  Mrs.  Powell  and  get  her  to  heat  up 
the  chop  again.  She  eyed  him  anxiously  to  see  if  he  looked  the 
kind  of  person  who  left  when  one  wanted  him  to,  and  found 
herself  liking  him  for  the  way  he  slouched  in  his  chair,  as 
though  he  wanted  to  mitigate  as  much  as  possible  his  terrify- 
ing strength  and  immensity.  What  for  did  a  fine  man  like 
him  help  to  make  cordite,  the  material  of  militarism,  which 
is  the  curse  of  the  nations?  She  wished  he  could  have  heard 
R.  J.  Campbell  speak  on  peace  the  other  night  at  the  Synod 
Hall;  it  was  fine.  But  probably  he  was  a  Conservative,  for 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  31 

these  big  men  were  often  unprogressive.  She  examined  him 
carefully  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye  to  estimate  the  chances 
of  his  being  brought  into  the  fold  of  reform  by  properly  se- 
lected oratory.  That  at  least  was  the  character  of  contempla- 
tion she  intended,  but  though  she  was  so  young  that  she  be- 
lieved the  enjoyment  of  any  sensory  impression  sheer  waste 
unless  it  was  popped  into  the  mental  stockpot  and  made  the 
basis  of  some  sustaining  moral  soup,  she  found  herself  just 
looking  at  him.  His  black  hair  lay  in  streaks  and  rings  on  his 
rain-wet  forehead  and  gave  him  an  abandoned  and  magical 
air,  like  the  ghost  of  a  drowned  man  risen  for  revelry;  his 
dark  gold  skin  told  a  traveller's  tale  of  far-off  pleasurable 
weather ;  and  the  bare  hand  that  lay  on  his  knee  was  patterned 
like  a  snake's  belly  with  brown  marks,  doubtless  the  stains  of 
his  occupation;  and  his  face  was  marked  with  an  expression 
that  it  vexed  her  she  could  not  put  a  name  to,  for  if  at  her 
age  she  could  not  read  human  nature  like  a  book  she  never 
would.  It  was  not  hunger,  for  it  was  serene,  and  it  was  not 
greed,  for  it  was  austere,  and  yet  it  certainly  signified  that 
he  habitually  made  upon  life  some  urgent  demand  that  was 
not  wholly  intellectual  and  that  had  not  been  wholly  satisfied. 
As  she  wondered  a  slight  retraction  of  his  chin  and  a  drooping 
of  his  heavy  eyelids  warned  her,  by  their  likeness  to  the  con- 
trolled but  embarrassed  movements  of  a  highly-bred  animal  ap- 
proached by  a  stranger,  that  he  knew  she  was  watching  him, 
and  she  took  her  gaze  away.  But  she  had  to  look  again,  just 
to  confirm  her  feeling  that  however  fanciful  she  might  be 
about  him  his  appearance  would  always  give  some  further  food 
for  her  imagination;  and  presently,  for  though  she  was  the 
least  vain  person  in  the  world  she  was  the  most  egotistical, 
^egan  to  compare  the  large  correctness  of  his  features  with 
the  less  academic  spontaneity  of  her  own.  "Lord!  Why  has 
everybody  but  me  got  a  straight  nose !"  she  exclaimed  to  her- 
self. "But  it's  all  blethers  to  think  that  an  indented  chin  means 
character.  How  can  a  dunt  in  your  bone  have  anything  to  do 
with  your  mind?"  She  rubbed  her  own  chin,  which  was  a 
little  white  ball,  and  pushed  it  forward,  glowering  at  his  great 
jaw.  Then  her  examination  ended.  She  noticed  that  all  over 
his  upper  lip  and  chin  there  was  a  faint  bluish  bloom,  as  if  he 


32  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

had  shaved  closely  and  recently  but  the  strong  hair  was  al- 
ready pressing  through  again.  That  disgusted  her,  although 
she  reminded  herself  that  he  could  not  help  it,  that  that  was  the 
way  he  was  made.  "There's  something  awful  like  an  animal 
about  a  man,"  she  thought,  and  shivered. 

"Och,  aye !"  said  Mr.  Philip,  which  was  a  sure  sign  that 
he  was  upset,  for  in  business  he  reckoned  to  say  "Yes,  yes." 
The  two  men  began  by  exchange  of  politenesses  about  Mr» 
Frank  Gibson,  to  whom  they  referred  in  the  impersonal  way  of 
business  conversations  as  though  he  were  some  well-known 
brand  of  integrity,  and  then  proceeded  to  divest  the  property 
in  Rio  de  Janeiro  of  all  interest  in  a  like  manner.  It  was  a 
house,  it  appeared,  and  was  at  present  let  to  an  American  named 
Capel  on  a  five  years'  lease,  which  had  nearly  expired.  There 
was  no  likelihood  of  Capel  requiring  any  extension  of  this 
lease,  for  he  was  going  back  to  the  States.  So  now  Yaverland 
wanted  to  sell  it.  There  ought  to  be  no  trouble  in  finding  a 
buyer,  for  it  was  a  famous  house.  "Everybody  in  Rio  knows 
the  Villa  Miraflores,"  he  said.  She  gasped  at  the  name  and 
wrote  it  in  longhand ;  to  compress  such  deliciousness  into  short- 
hand would  have  been  sacrilege.  After  that  she  listened  more 
eagerly  to  his  voice,  which  she  perceived  was  charged  with 
suppressed  magic  as  it  might  have  been  with  suppressed  laugh- 
ter. The  merry  find  no  more  difficulty  in  keeping  a  straight 
face  than  he  found  in  using  the  flat  phrase.  And  as  she  glee- 
fully gazed  at  him,  recognising  in  him  her  sort  of  person,  his 
speech  slipped  the  business  leash.  There  were  hedges  of 
geranium  and  poinsettia  about  the  villa,  pergolas  hung  with 
bougainvillea,  numberless  palms,  and  a  very  pleasant  orange 
grove  in  good  bearing;  in  the  courtyard  a  bronze  Venus  rode 
on  a  sprouting  whale,  and  there  were  many  fountains;  and 
within  there  was  much  white  marble  and  pillars  of  precious 
stone,  and  horrible  liverish  Viennese  mosaics,  for  the  house 
was  something  of  a  prodigy,  having  been  built  in  a  trade 
boom  by  a  rastaqouere.  "Mhm,"  said  Mr.  Philip  sagaciously, 
and  from  the  funeral  slide  of  respect  in  his  voice  Ellen  guessed 
that  he  imagined  rastaqouere  to  be  a  Brazilian  variety  of  Lord 
Provost.  She  would  have  laughed  had  there  not  been  the 
plainest  intimation  that  he  was  still  upset  about  something  in 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  33 

his  question  whether  Yaverland  thought  he  would  be  well 
advised  to  sell  the  house,  whether  he  had  any  reasonable  ex- 
pectation of  recovering  the  capital  he  had  sunk  in  it;  for  she 
had  noticed  that  whenever  Mr.  Philip  felt  miserable  he  was 
wont  to  try  and  cheer  himself  by  suggesting  that  somebody 
had  been  "done." 

But  that  worry  was  dissolved  by  the  enchantment  of  Yaver- 
land's  answer.  He  hadn't  the  slightest  idea  what  he  had  paid 
for  the  villa.  It  happened  this  way.  He  had  won  a  lot  of 
money  at  poker  (Tchk!  Tchk!"  said  Mr.  Philip,  half  shocked, 
but  showing  by  the  way  he  put  one  thumb  in  his  waistcoat  arm- 
hole  that  he  was  so  far  sensible  of  the  change  in  the  atmos- 
phere that  he  felt  the  need  of  some  romantic  gesture),  and  had 
felt  no  shame  in  pocketing  it  since  it  came  from  a  man  who 
was  gambling  to  try  to  show  that  he  wasn't  a  Jew.  Ellen 
hated  him  for  that.  She  believed  in  absolute  racial  equality, 
and  sometimes  intended  to  marry  a  Hindu  as  a  propagandist 
measure.  And  then  he  had  remembered  that  a  friend  of  his, 
de  Cayagun  of  the  Villa  Miraflores,  was  broke  and  wanted 
to  move.  Even  Rio  was  tired  of  poor  de  Cayagun,  though 
he'd  given  it  plenty  of  fun.  There  had  been  great  times  at  the 
villa.  His  phrases,  which  seemed  to  have  scent  and  colour 
as  well  as  meaning,  made  her  see  red  pools  of  wine  on  the 
marble  floor  and  rose  wreaths  about  the  bronze  whale's  snout, 
and  hear  from  the  orange  grove  the  sound  of  harps,  yet  from 
a  sullenness  in  his  faint  smile  she  deduced  there  had  been 
something  dark  in  this  delight.  Perhaps  somebody  had  got 
drunk.  But  he  was  saying  now  that  that  time  had  come  to  an 
end  long  before  the  night  when  he  had  won  this  money  from 
Demetrios.  De  Cayagun  had  no  more  jewels  to  give  away 
and  even  the  servants  had  all  left  him.  .  .  .  She  saw  night 
invading  the  villa  like  a  sickness  of  the  light,  the  pools  of 
wine  lying  black  on  marble  that  the  dusk  had  made  blue  like 
cold  flesh;  and  this  stranger  standing  white-faced  in  the 
stripped  banquet-hall,  with  the  broken  body  of  the  Venus  on 
a  bier  at  his  feet  and  above  his  head  the  creaking  wings  of 
birds  come  to  establish  desolation  under  the  shattered  roof. 
Why  was  he  so  sad  because  some  people  who  were  members 
of  the  parasite  class  and  were  probably  devoid  of  all  political 


34  THE  JUDGE  BOOK 

idealism  had  had  to  stop  having  a  good  time?  It  was,  she 
supposed,  that  ethereal  abstract  sorrow,  undimmed  by  personal 
misery  and  unconfined  by  the  syllogisms  of  moral  judgment, 
that  poets  feel :  that  Milton  had  felt  when  he  wrote  "Comus" 
about  somebody  for  whom  he  probably  wouldn't  have  mixed 
a  toddy,  that  she  herself  had  often  felt  when  the  evening  star 
shone  its  small  perfect  crescent  above  the  funeral  flame  of  the 
day.  People  would  call  it  a  piece  of  play-acting  nonsense 
just  because  of  its  purity  and  their  inveterate  peering  liking 
for  personal  emotion,  which  they  seemed  to  honour  according 
to  its  intensity  even  if  that  intensity  progressed  towards  the 
disagreeable.  She  remembered  how  the  neighbours  had  all 
respected  Mrs.  Ball  in  the  house  next  door  for  the  terrific 
manifestations  of  her  abandonment  to  the  grief  of  widowhood. 
"Tits,  tits,  puir  body!"  they  had  said  with  zestful  reverence, 
and  yet  the  woman  had  been  behaving  exactly  as  if  she  was 
seasick.  She  preferred  the  impersonal  pang.  It  was  right. 
Right  as  the  furniture  in  the  Chambers  Museum  was,  as  the 
clothes  in  Redfern's  window  in  Princes  Street  were,  as  this 
stranger  was.  And  it  had  a  high  meaning  too.  It  was  evoked 
by  the  end  of  things,  by  sunsets,  by  death,  by  silence,  following 
song;  by  intimations  that  no  motion  is  perpetual  and  that 
death  is  a  part  of  the  cosmic  process.  It  had  the  sacred  quality 
of  any  recognition  of  the  truth.  .  .  . 

Well,  he  was  telling  them  how  he  had  gone  up  to  de  Caya- 
gun,  and  they  had  knocked  up  a  notary  and  made  him  draft 
a  deed  of  sale,  which  he  had  posted  to  his  agents  without  read- 
ing. He  had  only  the  vaguest  idea  how  much  money  had 
changed  hands.  Mr.  Philip  shook  his  head  and  ckuckled 
knowingly,  "Well,  Mr.  Yaverland,  that  is  not  how  we  do 
business  in  Scotland,"  and  suggested  that  it  might  be  wise  to 
retain  some  part  of  the  property:  the  orange  grove,  for  in- 
stance. At  that  Yaverland  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
replied  with  an  august,  sweet-tempered  insolence  that  he 
couldn't  see  why  he  should,  since  he  wasn't  a  marmalade 
fancier.  "Besides,  that's  an  impossible  proposition.  It's  like 
selling  a  suburban  villa  and  retaining  an  interest  in  the  gera- 
nium bed.  .  .  ."  In  the  warm,  interesting  atmosphere  she  de- 
tected an  intimation  of  enmity  between  the  two  men;  and  it 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  35 

was  like  catching  a  caraway  seed  under  a  tooth  while  one  was 
eating  a  good  cake.  She  was  disturbed  and  wanted  to  inter- 
vene, to  warn  the  stranger  that  he  made  Mr.  Philip  dizzy  by 
talking  like  that.  And  the  reflection  came  to  her  that  it  would 
be  sweet,  too,  to  tell  him  that  he  could  talk  like  that  to  her 
for  ever,  that  he  could  go  on  as  he  was  doing,  being  much  more 
what  .one  expected  of  an  opera  than  a  client,  and  she  would 
follow  him  all  the  way.  But  it  struck  her  suddenly  and  chil- 
lingly that  she  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  would  be 
interested.  His  talk  was  in  the  nature  of  a  monologue.  He 
showed  no  sign  of  desiring  any  human  companionship. 

Still,  he  was  wonderful.  She  did  not  take  it  as  warning  of 
any  coldness  or  unkindness  in  him  that  it  was  impossible  to 
imagine  him  linked  by  a  human  relationship  to  any  ordinary 
person  like  herself ;  there  are  pictures  too  fine  for  private  own- 
ership. Just  then  he  was  being  particularly  fine  in  an  exciting 
way.  He  sat  up  very  straight,  flung  out  his  great  arm  with  a 
gesture  of  abandonment,  and  said  that  he  would  have  no  more 
to  do  with  this  house.  So  might  a  conqueror  speak  of  a  city 
he  was  weary  of  looting.  He  wanted  to  sell  it  outright,  and 
desired  Mr.  Philip  to  undertake  the  whole  business  of  con- 
cluding the  sale  with  the  Rio  agents.  "It's  all  here,"  he  said, 
and  took  from  his  pocket-book  a  packet  of  letters.  "They  hold 
the  title-deeds  and  you'll  see  how  things  are  getting  on  with 
the  deal.  But  I  suppose  the  language  will  be  a  difficulty.  I 
can  read  you  these,  of  course,  but  how  will  you  carry  on  the 
correspondence  ?" 

"Och,  we  can  send  out  to  a  translator " 

A  tingling  ran  through  Ellen's  veins.  The  men's  words, 
uttered  on  one  side  in  irritated  languor  and  on  the  other  with 
empty  spruceness,  had  suddenly  lifted  her  to  the  threshold  of 
life.  She  had  previsioned  many  moments  in  which  she  should 
disclose  her  unique  value  to  a  dazzled  world,  but  most  of  them 
had  seemed,  even  to  herself,  extremely  unlikely  to  arrive.  It 
was  improbable  that  Mr.  Asquith  should  fall  into  a  river  just 
as  she  was  passing,  and  that  he  should  be  so  helpless  and  the 
countryside  so  depopulated  that  she  would  be  able  to  exact 
votes  for  women  as  the  price  of  his  rescue ;  besides,  she  could 
not  swim.  It  was  improbable,  too,  that  she  should  be  in  a 


36  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONI 


South  American  republic  just  when  a  revolution  was  pro- 
claimed, and  that,  the  Latin  attitude  to  women  being  what  it 
is,  she  should  be  given  a  high  military  command.  But  there 
had  been  one  triumph  which  she  knew  to  be  not  impossible 
even  in  her  obscurity.  It  might  conceivably  happen  that  by 
some  exhibition  of  the  prodigious  bloom  of  her  efficiency  she 
would  repay  her  debt  to  the  firm  and  make  the  first  steps 
towards  becoming  the  pioneer  business  queen.  For  it  was  one 
of  her  dreams,  perhaps  the  six  hundred  and  seventy-ninth  in 
the  series,  that  one  day  she  would  sit  at  a  desk  answering  in- 
numerable telephone  calls  with  projecting  jaw,  as  millionaires 
do  on  the  movies,  and  crushing  rivals  like  blackbeetles  in  order 
that,  after  being  reviled  by  the  foolish  as  a  heartless  pluto- 
crat, she  might  hand  a  gigantic  Trust  over  to  the  Socialist 
State. 

"Mr.  Philip,"  she  said. 

Apparently  he  did  not  hear  her,  though  the  other  man  turned 
his  dark  glance  on  her. 

"Mr.  Philip,"  she  said.  He  looked  across  at  her  with  a 
blankness  she  took  as  part  of  the  business.  "I've  been  taking 
Commercial  Spanish  at  Skerry's.  I  took  a  first-class  certifi- 
cate. Maybe  I  could  manage  the  letters?" 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Yaverland  explosively.  He  appeared  to 
be  about  to  make  some  objection,  and  then  he  bit  back  the 
speech  that  was  already  in  his  mouth.  And  as  he  tried  to  find 
other  words  the  beauty  of  her  body  caught  his  attention.  It 
was,  as  it  happened,  very  visible  at  that  moment.  The  fulness 
of  her  overall  had  fallen  to  one  side  as  she  sat  on  the  high 
stool,  and  so  that  linen  was  tightly  wrapped  about  her,  dis- 
closing that  she  was  made  like  a  delicate  fleet  beast;  in  the 
valley  between  her  high  small  breasts  there  lay  a  shadow,  which 
grew  greater  when  she  breathed  deeply.  He  looked  at  her 
with  the  dispassionateness  which  comes  to  men  who  have  lived 
much  in  countries  where  nakedness  offers  itself  unashamed  to 
the  sunlight,  and  said  to  himself,  "I  should  like  to  see  her  run." 
He  knew  that  a  body  like  this  must  possess  an  infinite  capacity 
for  physical  pleasure,  that  to  her  mere  walking  would  give 
more  joy  than  others  find  in  dancing.  And  then  he  raised  his 
eyes  to  her  face  and  was  sad.  For  sufficient  reasons  he  was 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  37 

very  sensitive  to  the  tragedies  of  women,  and  he  knew  it  was  a 
tragedy  that  such  a  face  should  surmount  such  a  body.  For 
her  body  would  imprison  her  in  soft  places:  she  would  be 
allowed  no  adventures  other  than  love,  no  achievements  other 
than  births.  But  her  face  was  haggard,  in  spite  of  its  youth, 
with  appetite  for  travel  in  the  hard  places  of  the  world,  for 
the  adventures  and  achievements  that  are  the  birthright  of  any 
man.  "It's  rotten  luck  to  be  a  girl,"  he  thought.  "If  she 
were  a  boy  I  could  get  her  a  job  at  Rio.  .  .  .  Lord,  she  has 
lovely  hair!"  He  perceived  sharply  that  he  was  not  likely  to 
be  of  any  more  use  to  her  than  most  men  would.  All  he  could 
do  would  be  to  avert  the  humiliation  which  the  moment  seemed 
likely  to  bring  down  on  her. 

"Oh,  this  is  a  wonderful  country,"  he  said  aloud,  "where 
you  get  people  studying  Spanish  in  their  off-hours."  Ellen 
thought  it  rather  wonderful  too,  and  looked  at  her  toes  with 
a  priggish  blankness.  "You've  got  a  marvellous  educational 
system.  .  .  ."  He  paused,  conscious  that  he  was  too  mani- 
festly talking  at  random.  "In  two  continents  you've  enjoyed 
the  reputation  of  being  able  to  talk  the  hind-leg  off  a  donkey," 
he  reminded  himself.  "It's  the  language  to  learn,"  he  said 
aloud.  "It's  the  language  of  the  future.  Ever  been  in  Spain, 
Mr.  James?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  but  I  was  thinking  of  going  there — 
or  mebbe  Italy — ma  Easter  holidays."  Ellen  smiled  brilliantly 
at  him,  for  she  knew  that  he  had  had  no  such  thought  till  that 
evening's  talk  with  her;  she  had  converted  him  to  a  romantic. 
He  caught  her  eye,  only  to  glare  coldly  into  the  centre  of  her 
smile. 

It  was  Yaverland's  opportunity,  for  he  had  spent  two  years 
as  chemist  at  the  Romanones  mines  in  Andalusia ;  and  he  had 
learned  by  now  the  art  of  talking  to  the  Scotch,  whom  he  had 
discovered  to  be  as  extravagantly  literate  as  they  were  unsen- 
suous.  To  them  panpipes  might  play  in  vain,  but  almost  any 
series  of  statistics  or  the  more  desiccated  kind  of  social  fact 
recited  with  a  terrier-like  air  of  sagacity  would  entrance  them. 
"The  mines  are  Baird's,  you  know — Sir  Milne  Baird;  it's  a 
Glasgow  firm.  .  .  ."  "Mhm,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  "I  know  who 
you  mean."  Detestable,  thought  Yaverland,  this  Scotch  lo- 


38  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

cution  which  implies  that  one  has  made  a  vague  or  incorrect 
description  which  only  the  phenomenal  intelligence  of  one's 
listener  has  enabled  him  to  penetrate,  but  he  set  himself 
suavely  enough  to  describe  the  instability  of  Spanish  labour,  its 
disposition  to  call  strikes  that  were  really  larks,  and  the  greater 
willingness  with  which  it  keeps  its  saints'  days  rather  than  the 
commandments;  the  feckless  incapacity  of  the  Spanish  to 
exploit  their  own  minerals  and  the  evangelic  part  played  in 
the  shameful  shoes  by  Scotch  engineers ;  and  the  depleted  state 
of  the  country  in  general,  which  he  was  careful  to  ascribe  not 
so  much  to  the  presence  of  Catholicism  as  to  the  absence  of 
Presbyterianism.  And  he  advised  Mr.  Philip  that  while  a  so- 
journ in  the  towns  would  reveal  these  sad  political  conditions, 
there  were  other  deplorable  aspects  of  the  national  decay 
which  could  only  be  witnessed  if  he  took  a  few  rides  over  the 
countryside.  ("A  horse  or  a  bicycle?"  asked  Mr.  Philip 
doubtfully.)  Then  he  would  have  a  pleasant  holiday.  The 
language  presented  few  difficulties,  although  travelling  off  the 
tracks  in  Andalusia  was  sometimes  impeded  by  the  linguistic 
ingenuity  of  the  peasants,  who,  though  they  didn't  neigh  and 
whinny  like  the  Castilians,  went  one  better  by  omitting  the 
consonants.  Why,  there  was  a  place  which  spelt  itself  Algo- 
donales  on  the  map  and  calls  itself  Aooae. 

He  watched  her  under  his  lids  as  she  silently  tried  it  over. 

It  was  a  village  of  no  importance,  save  for  the  road  that 
close  by  forded  the  Guadalete,  which  was  a  pale  icy  mountain 
stream,  snow-broth,  as  Shakespeare  said.  (Now  what  had  he 
said  to  excite  her  so  ?  Modesty  and  a  sense  of  office  discipline 
were  restraining  some  eager  cry  of  her  mind,  like  white  hands 
holding  birds  resolved  on  flight.)  One  passed  through  it  on 
a  ride  that  Mr.  Philip  must  certainly  take  when  he  went  to 
Spain.  Yaverland  himself  had  done  it  last  February.  He 
receded  into  a  dream  of  that  springtime,  yet  kept  his  conscious- 
ness of  the  girl's  rapt  attention,  as  one  may  clasp  the  warm 
hand  of  a  friend  while  one  thinks  deeply,  and  he  sent  his  voice 
out  to  Mr.  Philip  as  into  a  void,  describing  how  he  had  gone 
to  Seville  one  saint's  day  and  how  the  narrow  decaying  streets, 
choked  with  loveliness  like  stagnant  ditches  filled  with  a  fair 
weed,  had  entertained  him.  For  a  time  he  had  sat  in  the 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  39 

Moorish  courts  of  the  Alcazar;  he  had  visited  the  House  of 
Pontius  Pilate  and  had  watched  through  the  carven  windows 
the  two  stone  women  that  pray  for  ever  among  the  flowers 
in  the  courtyard;  he  had  lingered  by  the  market-stalls  observ- 
ing their  exquisite,  unprofitable  trade.  He  was  telling  not  half 
the  beauty  that  he  recollected,  save  in  a  phrase  that  he  now 
and  then  dropped  to  the  girl's  manifest  appetite  for  such 
things,  and  he  took  a  malign  pleasure  in  painting,  so  to  speak, 
advertisement  matter  across  the  sky  of  his  landscapes  so  that 
Mr.  Philip  could  swallow  them  as  being  of  potential  commer- 
cial value  and  not  mere  foolish  sensuous  enjoyment.  "There's 
so  little  real  wealth  in  the  country  that  they  have  to  buy  and 
sell  mere  pretty  things  for  God  knows  what  fraction  of  a 
farthing.  On  the  stalls  where  you'd  have  cheap  clocks  and 
crockery  and  Austrian  glass,  they  had  stacks  of  violets  and 
carnations — violetas  y  claveles.  .  .  ."  Then  a  chill  and  a  dim- 
ness passed  over  the  bright  spectacle  and  a  sunset  flamed  up 
half  across  the  sky  as  though  light  had  been  driven  out  of  the 
gates  by  the  sword  and  had  scaled  the  heaven  that  it  might 
storm  the  city  from  above.  The  lanes  became  little  runnels 
of  darkness  and  night  slowly  silted  up  the  broader  streets. 
The  incessant  orgy  of  sound  that  by  day  had  been  but  the 
tuneless  rattling  of  healthy  throats  and  the  chatter  of  castanets 
became  charged  with  tragedy  by  its  passage  through  the  grave 
twilight.  The  people  pressed  about  him  like  vivacious  ghosts, 
differentiating  themselves  from  the  dusk  by  wearing  white 
flowers  in  their  hair  or  cherishing  the  glow-worm  tip  of  a 
cigarette  between  their  lips. 

He  remembered  it  very  well.  For  that  was  a  night  that  the 
torment  of  loneliness  had  rushed  in  upon  him,  an  experience 
of  the  pain  that  had  revisited  him  so  often  that  a  little  more 
and  he  would  be  reconciled  to  the  idea  of  death.  Even  then 
he  had  been  intelligent  about  the  mood  and  had  known  that 
his  was  not  a  loneliness  that  could  be  exorcised  by  any  of  the 
beautiful  brown  bodies  which  here  professed  the  arts  of  love 
and  the  dance  and  that  drunkenness  which  would  bring  a  phys- 
ical misery  to  match  his  mental  state.  Though  this  was  wis- 
dom, it  added  to  his  sense  of  being  lost  in  black  space  like  a 
wandering  star.  In  the  end  he  had  gone  into  a  cafe  and  drunk 


40  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

manzanilla,  and  with  the  limp  complaisance  of  a  wrecked  sea- 
sick man  whose  raft  has  shivered  and  left  him  to  the  mercy 
of  an  octopus  he  had  suffered  adoption  by  a  party  of  German 
engineers,  who  had  made  very  merry  with  stories  of  tipsy 
priests  and  nuns  who  had  not  lived  up  to  their  position  as 
the  brides  of  Christ.  Dismal  night,  forerunner  of  a  hundred 
such.  "Oh,  God,  what  is  the  use  of  it  all?  I  sit  here  yarning 
to  this  damned  little  dwarf  of  a  solicitor  and  this  girl  who 
is  sick  to  go  to  these  countries  from  which  I've  come  back 
cold  and  famined.  .  .  ." 

But  he  went  on,  since  the  occasion  seemed  to  demand  it, 
giving  a  gay  account  of  the  beauty  which  he  remembered  so 
intensely  because  it  had  framed  his  agony ;  how  the  next  day, 
under  a  sky  that  was  temporarily  pale  and  amiable  because 
this  was  early  spring,  he  had  ridden  down  the  long  road  be- 
tween the  brown  heathy  pastures  to  the  blue  barren  downland 
that  lies  under  the  black  mountains,  and  had  come  at  last  to  a 
winding  path  that  led  not  only  through  space  but  through 
time,  for  it  ran  nimbly  in  and  out  among  the  seasons.  It 
travelled  under  the  rosy  eaves  of  a  forest  of  blossoming  al- 
mond up  to  a  steep  as  haggard  with  weather  as  a  Scotch  moor, 
and  dipped  again  to  hedges  of  aloes  and  cactus  and  asphodel. 
At  one  moment  a  spindrift  of  orange  blossom  blew  about  him ; 
at  another  he  had  watched  the  peasants  in  their  brown  capes 
stripping  their  dark  green  orange-groves  and  piling  the  golden 
globes  into  the  panniers  of  donkeys  which  were  gay  with  ma- 
genta tassels.  At  one  time  there  was  trouble  getting  the  horse 
up  the  icy  trail,  yet  a  little  later  it  was  treading  down  the  irises 
and  jonquils  and  bending  its  head  to  snuff  the  rosemary.  So 
on,  beauty  all  the  way,  and  infinitely  variable,  all  the  many 
days'  journey  to  the  coast,  where  the  mountain  drops  suddenly 
to  the  surf  and  reflects  the  Mediterranean  sky  as  a  purple 
glamour  on  its  snowy  crest.  Ah,  such  a  country! 

He  meant  to  go  at  that,  for  his  listeners  were  now  like  honey- 
drugged  bees:  to  toss  his  papers  on  the  table,  go  out,  and  let 
the  situation  settle  itself  after  his  departure.  But  Mr.  Philip 
said,  "But  surely  they're  crool.  Bullfights  and  that " 

He  could  not  let  that  pass.  "You  don't  understand.  It's 
different  over  there." 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  41 

"Surely  right's  right  and  wrong's  wrong,  wherever  you 
are?"  said  Mr.  Philip. 

"No.  Spain's  a  place,  as  I  said,  where  one  travels  in  time 
as  well  as  in  space.  .  .  ."  He  didn't  himself  agree  that  the 
bullfight  was  so  much  crueller  than  most  organised  activities 
of  men.  From  the  bull's  point  of  view,  indeed,  it  was  a  nobler 
way  of  becoming  roast  beef  than  any  other  and  gave  him  the 
chance  of  drawing  blood  for  blood;  and  the  toreador's  life 
was  good,  as  all  dangerous  lives  are.  But  of  course  there 
were  the  horses;  he  shuddered  at  his  unspoken  memory  of  a 
horse  stumbling  from  the  arena  at  Seville  with  a  riven  belly 
and  hanging  entrails  that  gleamed  like  mother-o'-pearl.  Oh, 
yes,  he  admitted,  it  was  cruel ;  or,  rather,  would  be  if  it  were 
committed  by  a  people  like  ourselves.  But  it  wasn't.  That  was 
the  point  he  wanted  to  make.  When  one  travelled  far  back  in 
time.  It  was  hard  for  us — "for  you,  especially,"  he  amplified, 
with  a  courteous,  enthusiastic  flinging  out  of  his  hand,  "with 
your  unparalleled  Scotch  system  of  education" — to  compre- 
hend the  mentality  of  a  people  which  had  been  prevented,  by 
the  economic  insanity  of  its  governors  and  the  determination 
of  the  Church  to  sit  on  its  intelligence  till  it  stopped  kicking, 
from  growing  up.  Among  the  things  it  hadn't  attained  to  was 
the  easy  anthropocentric  attitude  that  is  part  of  our  civilisation. 

Ellen  thought  him  very  wonderful,  as  he  stood  theorising 
about  the  experiences  he  had  described,  like  a  lecturer  in  front 
of  his  magic-lantern  pictures;  for  he  was  wholly  given  up  to 
speculation  and  yet  was  as  substantial  as  any  man  of  action. 

Panic,  he  invited  them  to  consider,  was  the  habitual  state 
of  mind  of  primitive  peoples,  the  flood  that  submerged  all  but 
the  strongest  swimmers.  The  savage  spent  his  days  suspecting 
and  exorcising  evil.  The  echo  in  the  cliff  is  an  enemy,  the 
wind  in  the  grass  an  approaching  sickness,  the  new-born  child 
clad  in  mystery  and  defilement.  But  it  wasn't  for  us  to  laugh 
at  the  savage  for,  so  to  speak,  not  having  found  his  earth-legs, 
since  our  quite  recent  ancestors  had  held  comets  and  eclipses 
to  be  menacing  gestures  of  the  stars.  Some  primitive  sus- 
picions were  reasonable,  and  chief  among  these  the  fear  that 
man's  ascendancy  over  the  other  animals  might  yet  be  dis- 
puted. Early  man  sat  by  the  camp  fire  gnawing  his  bone  and 


42  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

sneered  through  the  dusk  at  the  luminous,  envious  eyes  of  the 
wild  beasts  that  stood  in  the  forest  fringes,  but  he  was  not 
easy  in  his  mind  about  them.  Their  extreme  immobility  might 
be  the  sign  of  a  tense  patience  biding  its  time.  Who  was  to 
say  that  some  night  the  position  might  not  be  reversed — that 
it  would  not  be  he  who  stood  naked  save  for  his  own  pelt 
among  the  undergrowth  watching  some  happy  firelit  puma 
licking  the  grease  of  a  good  meal  from  its  paws?  That  was 
the  primitive  doubt.  It's  an  attitude  that  one  may  understand 
even  now,  he  said,  when  one  faces  the  spring  of  one  of  the 
larger  carnivora;  and  Ellen  thrilled  to  hear  him  refer  to  this 
as  Edinburgh  folk  refer  to  a  wrestle  with  the  east  wind.  It's 
an  attitude  that  was  bound  to  persist,  long  after  the  rest  of 
Europe  had  got  going  with  more  modern  history,  in  Spain; 
where  villages  were  subject  on  winter's  nights  to  the  visita- 
tions of  wolves  and  bears,  and  where  the  Goths  and  the  Arabs 
and  the  Christians  and  the  Berbers  proved  so  extravagantly  the 
wrangling  lack  of  solidarity  in  the  human  herd.  There  had 
from  earliest  times  existed  all  round  the  Mediterranean  basin 
a  ceremony  by  which  primitive  man  gave  a  concrete  ritual  ex- 
pression to  this  fear:  the  killing  of  the  bull.  They  took  the 
bull  as  the  representative  of  the  brutes  which  were  the  enemies1 
of  man  and  slew  him  by  a  priest's  knife  and  with  much  decora- 
tive circumstances  to  show  that  this  was  no  mere  butchering 
of  meat.  Well,  there  in  Spain  it  survived.  .  .  .  He  had 
spoken  confidently  and  dogmatically,  but  his  eyes  asked  them 
appealingly  whether  they  didn't  see,  as  if  in  his  course  through 
the  world  he  had  been  disappointed  by  the  number  of  people 
who  never  saw. 

"That's  all  very  fine,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  "but  they've  had 
time  to  get  over  their  little  fancies.  We're  in  the  twentieth 
century  now." 

Ah,  the  conception  might  never  emerge  into  their  conscious- 
ness, and  perhaps  they  would  laugh  at  it  if  it  did;  but  for  all 
that  it  lies  sunk  in  their  minds  and  shapes  their  mental  contour. 
When  a  dead  city  is  buried  by  earth  and  no  new  city  is  built 
on  its  site  the  peasants  tread  out  their  paths  on  the  terraces 
which  show  where  the  old  streets  ran.  Something  like  that 
happened  to  a  nation.  Modern  Spaniards  hadn't,  thanks  to 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  43 

taxation  and  the  Church,  been  able  to  build  a  mental  life  for 
themselves ;  so,  since  the  mind  of  man  must  have  a  little  exer- 
cise, they  repeated  imitatively  the  actions  by  which  their  fore- 
fathers had  responded  to  their  quite  real  psychological  impera- 
tives. You  couldn't  perhaps  find  in  the  whole  of  the  Penin- 
sula a  man  or  woman  who  felt  this  fear  of  the  beast,  but  that 
didn't  affect  his  case.  It  was  enough  that  all  men  and  women 
in  the  Peninsula  had  once  felt  it  and  had  formed  a  national 
habit  of  attending  bullfights,  and  as  silly  subalterns  sometimes 
lay  the  toe  of  their  boots  to  a  Hindu  for  the  glory  of  the  Brit- 
ish Empire — keeping  the  animal  creation  in  its  place  by  kicks 
and  blows  to  mules  and  dogs. 

It  was  incredible,  he  exclaimed,  the  interweaving  of  the  old 
and  the  new  that  made  up  the  fabric  of  life  in  Spain.  He 
could  give  them  another  illustration  of  that.  He  had  lodged 
for  three  weeks  in  Seville,  in  a  flat  at  the  Cathedral  end  of  the 
Canovas  de  Castillo — "that's  a  street,"  he  interjected  towards 
Ellen,  "called  after  a  statesman  they  assassinated,  they  don't 
quite  know  why."  In  the  flat  there  lodged  a  priest,  the  usual 
drunken  Spanish  priest;  and  very  early  every  morning,  as  the 
people  first  began  to  sing  in  the  streets,  a  man  drove  up  in  an 
automobile  and  took  him  away  for  an  hour.  Presently  he  was 
told  the  story  of  this  morning  visitor  by  several  people  in  the 
house,  and  he  had  listened  to  it  as  one  didn't  often  listen  to 
twice-told  tales,  for  it  was  amazing  to  observe  how  each  of 
the  tellers,  whether  it  was  tipsy  Fra  Jeronimo  or  the  triple- 
chinned  landlady,  Donna  Gloria,  or  Pepe,  the  Atheist  medical 
student  who  kept  his  skeletons  in  the  washhouse  on  the  roof, 
accepted  it  as  a  quite  commonplace  episode.  The  man  in  the 
automobile  had  lost  his  wife.  He  minded  quite  a  lot,  perhaps 
because  he  had  gone  through  a  good  deal  to  get  her.  When  he 
first  met  her  she  was  another  man's  wife.  He  said  nothing  to 
her  then,  but  presently  the  way  that  he  stared  at  her  at  the 
bullfight  and  the  opera  and  waited  in  the  Paseo  de  la  Delicias 
for  her  carriage  to  come  by  made  Seville  talk,  and  her  husband 
called  him  out.  The  duel  was  fought  on  some  sandy  flat  down 
by  the  river,  and  the  husband  was  killed.  It  was  given  out  that 
he  had  been  gored  by  a  bull,  and  within  a  year  the  widow  mar- 
ried the  man  who  had  killed  him.  In  another  year  she  was 


44  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

dead  of  fever.  Her  husband  gave  great  sums  for  Masses  for 
her  soul  and  to  charity,  and  shut  up  the  house  where  they 
had  entertained  Seville  with  the  infantile,  interminable  gaieties 
that  are  loved  by  the  South,  and  went  abroad.  When  he  re- 
turned he  went  back  to  live  in  that  house,  but  now  no  one  ever 
entered  it  except  the  priest;  and  he  went  not  for  any  social 
purpose,  but  to  say  Mass  over  the  woman's  bed,  which  her 
husband  had  turned  into  an  altar.  Every  day  those  two  said 
Mass  at  that  bed,  though  it  was  five  years  since  she  had  died. 
That  was  a  queer  enough  story  for  the  present  day,  with  its 
woman  won  by  bloodshed  and  the  long  unassuagable  grief  of 
the  lover  and  the  resort  to  religion  that  struck  us  as  irreverent 
because  it  was  so  utterly  believing ;  it  might  have  come  out  of 
the  Decameron.  But  the  last  touch  of  wildness  was  added  by 
the  identity  of  the  man  in  the  automobile.  For  he  was  the 
Marquis  d'ltalica,  the  finest  Spanish  aviator,  a  man  not  only 
of  the  mediaeval  courage  one  might  have  guessed  from  the 
story,  but  also  of  the  most  modern  wit  about  machines.  .  .  . 

Yaverland  bit  his  lip  suddenly.  He  had  told  the  story  with- 
out shame,  for  he  knew  well  and  counted  it  among  the  hearten- 
ing facts  of  life,  like  the  bravery  of  seamen  and  the  sweetness 
of  children,  that  to  a  man  a  woman's  bed  may  sometimes  be  an 
altar.  But  Mr.  Philip  had  ducked  his  head  and  his  ears  were 
red.  Shame  was  entering  the  room  like  a  bad  smell. 

For  a  minute  Yaverland  did  not  dare  to  look  at  Ellen.  "I 
had  forgotten  she  was  a  girl,"  he  thought  miserably.  "I 
thought  of  nothing  but  how  keen  she  is  on  Spain.  I  don't 
know  how  girls  feel  about  things.  .  .  ."  But  she  was  sitting 
warm  and  rosy  in  a  happy  dream,  looking  very  solemnly  at  a 
picture  she. was  making  in  the  darkness  over  his  left  shoulder. 
She  had  liked  the  story,  although  the  thought  of  men  fighting 
over  a  woman  made  her  feel  sick,  as  any  conspicuous  example 
of  the  passivity  common  in  her  sex  always  did.  But  the  rest 
she  had  thought  lovely.  It  was  a  beautiful  idea  of  the  Mar- 
quis's to  turn  the  bed  into  an  altar.  Probably  he  had  often 
gone  into  his  wife's  room  to  kiss  her  good-night.  She  saw  a  nar- 
row iron  bedstead  such  as  she  herself  slept  in,  a  face  half  hid- 
den by  the  black  hair  flung  wide  across  the  pillow,  a  body  bent 
like  a  bow  under  the  bedclothes,  for  she  herself  still  curled  up 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  45 

at  nights  as  dogs  and  children  do;  and  the  Marquis,  whom 
she  pictured  as  carrying  a  robin's  egg  blue  enamelled  candle- 
stick like  the  one  she  always  carried  up  to  her  room,  kneeling 
down  and  kissing  his  wife  very  gently  lest  she  should  awake. 
Love  must  be  a  great  compensation  to  those  who  have  not  polit- 
ical ambitions.  She  became  aware  that  Yaverland's  eyes  were 
upon  her,  and  she  slowly  smiled,  reluctantly  unveiling  her 
good  will  to  him.  It  again  appeared  to  him  that  the  world  was 
a  place  in  which  one  could  be  at  one's  ease  without  disgrace. 

He  stood  up  and  brought  a  close  to  the  business  interview, 
and  was  gripping  Mr.  Philip's  hand,  when  a  sudden  recollec- 
tion reddened  his  face.  "Ah,  there's  one  thing,"  he  said  quite 
lightly,  though  the  vein  down  the  middle  of  his  forehead  had 
darkened.  "You  see  from  those  letters  that  a  Senor  Vicente  de 
Rojas  is  making  an  offer  for  the  house.  He's  not  to  have  it. 
Do  you  understand?  Not  at  any  price." 

The  effect  of  this  restriction,  made  obviously  at  the  behest 
of  some  deep  passion,  was  to  make  him  suddenly  sinister. 
They  gazed  at  him  as  though  he  had  revealed  that  he  carried 
arms.  But  Ellen  remembered  business  again. 

"Those  letters,"  she  reminded  Mr.  Philip,  "had  I  not  better 
read  them  over  before  Mr.  Yaverland  goes?" 

Yaverland  caught  his  breath,  then  spoke  off-handedly. 
"You're  forgetting.  They  don't  speak  Spanish  in  Brazil,  but 
Portuguese."  And  added  confidentially,  "Of  course  you  were 
thinking  of  the  Argentine." 

She  was  as  hurt  by  the  revelation  of  this  vast  breach  in 
her  omniscience  as  the  bright  twang  of  knowingness  in  her 
voice  had  told  him  she  would  be. 

"Yes,"  she  said  unsteadily,  "I  was  thinking  of  the  Argen- 
tine." 

He  shook  hands  with  Mr.  Philip,  and  she  took  him  down  the 
corridor  to  the  door.  She  blinked  back  her  tears  as  he  stood 
at  the  head  of  the  stair  and  put  up  his  collar  with  those  strange 
hands  that  were  speckled  like  a  snake's  belly,  for  it  seemed  a 
waste,  like  staying  indoors  when  the  menagerie  procession  is 
going  round  the  town,  to  let  anything  so  unusual  go  away 
without  seeing  as  much  of  it  as  possible.  Then  she  remem- 
bered the  thing  that  she  had  wanted  to  say  in  the  other  room, 


46  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


and  wondered  if  it  would  be  bold  to  speak,  and  finally  re- 
marked in  a  voice  disagreeable  with  shyness,  "The  people  up 
on  the  Pentland  Hills  use  that  word  you  said  was  in  Shake- 
speare. Snow-broth.  When  the  hill-streams  run  full  after  the 
melting  of  the  snows,  that's  snow-broth." 

He  liked  women  who  were  interested  in  queer-shaped  frag- 
ments of  fact,  for  they  reminded  him  of  his  mother.  He  took 
pains  to  become  animated  at  her  news. 

"They  do,  they  do!"  Ellen  assured  him,  pleased  by  his 
response.  "And  they  say  'hit'  for  'it/  which  is  Anglo-Saxon." 

He  noticed  that  her  overall,  which  she  was  growing  out  of, 
fitted  tightly  on  her  over-thin  shoulders  and  showed  how  their 
line  was  spoilt  by  the  deep  dip  of  the  clavicle,  and  wondered 
why  that  imperfection  should  make  her  more  real  to  him  than 
she  had  been  when  he  had  thought  her  wholly  beautiful.  Again 
he  became  aware  of  her  discontent  with  her  surroundings,  which 
had  exerted  on  her  personality  nothing  of  the  weakening  effect 
of  despair,  since  it  sprang  from  such  a  rich  content  with  the 
universe,  such  a  confident  faith  that  the  supremest  beauty  she 
could  imagine  existed  somewhere  and  would  satisfy  her  if 
only  she  could  get  at  it.  He  said,  with  no  motive  but  to  con- 
firm her  belief  that  the  world  was  full  of  interest,  "You  must 
go  on  with  your  Spanish,  you  know.  Don't  just  treat  it  as  a 
commercial  language.  There's  a  lot  of  fine  stuff  in  Spanish 
literature."  He  hesitated,  feeling  uncertain  as  to  whether 
"Celestina"  or  "Juan  de  Ruiz"  were  really  suitable  for  a  young 
girl.  "Saint  Teresa,  you  know,"  he  suggested,  with  the  air 
of  one  who  had  landed  on  his  feet. 

"Oh,  I  can't  do  with  religion,"  said  Ellen  positively. 

He  spluttered  a  laugh  that  seemed  to  her  the  first  irrational 
flaw  in  something  exquisitely  reasonable,  and  ran  down  the 
dark  stairs.  She  attended  imaginatively  to  the  sound  of  his 
footsteps ;  as  on  her  first  excited  night  in  country  lodgings  the 
summer  before  she  had  sat  up  in  bed  listening  to  horse's  hooves 
beating  through  the  moonlit  village  street,  and  had  thought  of 
the  ghosts  of  highwaymen.  But  this  was  the  ghost  of  an 
Elizabethan  seaman.  She  could  see  him,  bearded  and  with 
gold  rings  in  his  ears  and  the  lustrousness  of  fever  in  his  eyes, 
captaining  with  oaths  and  the  rattle  of  arms  a  boat  rowed  by 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  47 

naked  Indians  along  a  yellow  waterway  between  green  cliffs 
of  foliage.  Yes,  she  could  not  imagine  him  consulting  any  map 
that  was  not  gay  with  painted  figures  and  long  scrolls. 

Dazed  with  the  wonder  of  him,  she  went  back  into  the  room, 
and  it  was  a  second  or  two  before  she  noticed  that  Mr.  Philip 
was  ramming  his  hat  on  his  head  and  putting  on  his  overcoat 
as  though  he  had  not  a  moment  to  lose.  "You've  no  need  to 
fash  yourself,"  she  told  him  happily.  "It's  not  half-past  seven 
yet.  You've  got  a  full  hour.  I  can  run  down  and  heat  up  your 
chop,  if  you'll  wait." 

"Oh,  spare  yourself !"  he  begged  her  shortly. 

She  moved  about  the  room,  putting  away  papers  and  shut- 
ting drawers  and  winding  up  the  eight-day  clock  on  the  man- 
telpiece a  clear  three  days  before  it  needed  it,  with  a  mixed 
motive  of  clearing  up  before  her  departure  and  making  it  clean 
and  bare  as  befitted  a  place  where  heroes  came  to  do  business ; 
and  she  was  more  than  unaware  that  Mr.  Philip  was  watching 
her  like  an  ambushed  assassin,  she  was  confident  in  a  concep- 
tion of  the  world  which  excluded  any  such  happening.  He  was 
standing  by  the  mantelpiece  fastening  his  furry  storm-gloves, 
and  though  he  found  it  teasing  to  adjust  the  straps  in  the 
shadow,  he  would  not  step  into  the  light  and  look  down  on  his 
hands.  For  his  little  eye  was  set  on  Ellen,  and  it  was  dull 
with  speculation  as  to  whether  she  knew  what  he  had  meant 
to  do  to  her  that  moment  when  the  knocking  came  at  the 
door.  Because  the  thing  that  he  had  meant  to  do  seemed  foul 
when  he  looked  on  her  honourably  held  little  head  and  her 
straight  blue  smock,  he  began  to  tamper  with  reality,  so  that 
he  might  believe  himself  not  to  have  incurred  the  guilt  of 
that  intention.  Surely  it  had  been  she  that  had  planned  that 
thing,  not  he?  Girls  were  nasty -minded  and  were  always 
thinking  about  men.  He  began  to  remember  the  evening  all 
over  again,  dusting  with  lasciviousness  each  of  the  gestures 
that  had  shone  with  such  clear  colours  in  his  sight,  dulling 
each  of  the  sentences  by  which  she  had  displayed  to  him  her 
trimly-kept  mental  accoutrement  until  they  became  simpering 
babble,  falsifying  his  minute  memory  of  the  scene  until  it 
became  a  record  of  her  lust  instead  of  his.  Something  deep 
in  him  stated  quietly  and  glumly  that  he  was  now  doing  a 


48  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

wrong  far  worse  than  the  thing  that  he  had  planned,  and, 
though  he  would  not  listen,  it  was  making  him  so  sensible  that 
the  essence  of  the  evening  was  his  degradation  that  he  felt 
very  ill.  If  the  palpitation  of  his  heart  and  the  shortness  of 
his  breath  continued  he  would  have  to  sit  down  and  then  she 
would  be  kind  to  him.  He  would  never  forgive  her  for  all  this 
trouble  she  had  brought  on  him. 

When  she  could  no  longer  hold  it  in  she  exclaimed  artlessly, 
"Yon  Mr.  Yaverland's  a  most  interesting  man." 

He  searched  for  an  insult  and  felt  resentful  of  the  required 
effort,  for  his  heart  was  making  him  very  uncomfortable.  He 
wished  some  crude  gesture,  some  single  ugly  word,  would  do 
it.  "You  thought  him  an  interesting  man?"  he  asked  nag- 
gingly.  "You  don't  surprise  me.  It  was  a  bit  too  plain  you 
thought  so.  I'll  thank  you  not  to  be  so  forward  with  a  client 
again.  It'll  give  the  office  a  bad  name.  And  chatting  at  the 
door  like  that!" 

He  looked  for  his  umbrella,  which  was  kept  in  this  room  and 
not  in  the  hall-stand,  lest  its  handsome  cairngorm  knob  should 
tempt  any  of  the  needier  visitors  to  the  office,  and  removed 
its  silk  cover,  which  he  placed  in  the  pocket  where  he  kept 
postage-stamps  and,  to  provide  for  emergencies,  a  book  of 
court  plaster. 

"I'm  sure  I'll  not  have  to  speak  twice  about  this,  Miss 
Melville,"  he  said,  with  an  appearance  of  forbearing  kindli- 
ness, as  he  passed  out  of  the  door.  "Good  night." 

IV 

She  paused  in  the  dark  archway  that  led  into  Hume  Park 
Square. 

"It  can't  hurt  me,  what  Mr.  Philip  said,  because  it  isn't 
true."  She  wagged  a  pedagogic  finger  at  herself.  "See  here ! 
Think  of  it  in  terms  of  Euclid.  If  you  do  a  faulty  proof  by 
superposition  and  haven't  remembered  the  theorem  rightly, 
you  can  go  on  saying,  'Lay  AB  along  DE'  till  all's  blue  and 
you'll  never  make  C  coincide  with  F.  In  the  same  way  Mr. 
Philip  can  blether  to  his  silly  heart's  content  and  he'll  never 
prove  that  I'm  a  bold  girl.  Me,  Ellen  Melville,  who  cares 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  49 

for  nothing  in  the  world  except  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
and  getting  on.  .  .  ." 

She  felt  better.  "There's  nothing  in  life  you  can't  get  the 
better  of  by  thinking  about  it,"  she  said  sententiously,  and  fell 
to  dabbing  her  eyes  with  her  handkerchief.  She  could  easily 
pass  off  her  tearstains  as  the  marks  of  a  bad  cold.  "It's  a 
dreadful  thing  to  rejoice  in  another  body's  affliction,  but  some- 
times I'm  glad  mother's  so  short-sighted. 

"He  wanted  to  make  me  unhappy,  but  he  did  not  know 
how,"  she  thought,  with  a  sudden  renewal  of  rage.  "Now  I 
should  have  minded  awful  if  he  had  noticed  that  slip  I  made 
about  the  Brazilians  talking  Spanish.  It  was  a  mercy  yon  man 
Yaverland  thought  I  was  thinking  of  the  Argentine."  But 
indeed  the  stranger  would  never  have  wanted  to  hurt  her ;  she 
felt  sure  that  he  was  either  very  kind  to  people  or  very  in- 
different. She  began  to  recall  him  delightedly,  to  see  him 
standing  in  the  villa  garden  against  a  hedge  of  scarlet  flowers 
that  marched  as  tall  as  soldiers  beside  a  marble  wall,  to  see 
him  moving,  dark  and  always  a  little  fierce,  through  a  world  of 
beauty  she  was  now  too  fatigued  to  imagine  save  as  a  kind 
of  solidification  of  a  sunset.  Dreamily  she  moved  to  the  little 
house  in  the  corner.  .  .  . 

It  was  her  habit  to  let  herself  in  with  the  latchkey  just  as  if 
she  were  the  man  of  the  house. 

"Mercy,  Ellen,  you're  late!  I  was  getting  feared!"  cried 
her  mother,  who  had  gone  to  the  kitchen  to  boil  up  the  cocoa 
when  she  heard  the  key  in  the  lock.  She  liked  that  sound. 
Ellen  thought  herself  a  wonderful  new  sort  of  woman  who  was 
going  to  be  just  like  a  man ;  she  would  have  been  surprised  if 
she  had  known  how  many  of  her  stern-browed  ambitions,  how 
much  of  her  virile  swagger  of  life,  were  not  the  invention  of 
her  own  soul,  but  had  been  suggested  to  her  by  an  old  woman 
who  liked  to  pretend  her  daughter  was  a  son. 

"We  had  a  great  press  of  business  and  I  had  to  stay,"  said 
Ellen  with  masculine  nonchalance.  "A  most  interesting  client 
came  in. 


CHAPTER  II 


EVERY  Saturday  afternoon  Ellen  sold  Votes  for  Women 
in  Princes  Street,  and  the  next  day  found  her  as  usual 
with  a  purple,  white  and  green  poster  hung  from  her  waist 
and  a  bundle  of  papers  tucked  under  her  arm.  This  street- 
selling  had  always  been  a  martyrdom  to  her  proud  spirit,  for 
it  was  one  of  the  least  of  her  demands  upon  the  universe  that 
she  should  be  well  thought  of  eternally  and  by  everyone;  but 
she  had  hitherto  been  sustained  by  the  reflection  that  while 
there  were  women  in  jail,  as  there  were  always  in  those  days, 
it  ill  became  her  to  mind  because  Lady  Cumnock  (and  every- 
one knew  what  she  was,  for  all  that  she  opened  so  many  ba- 
zaars) laughed  down  her  long  nose  as  she  went  by.  But  now 
Ellen  had  lost  all  her  moral  stiffening,  and  as  that  had  always 
been  her  specialty  she  was  distressed  by  the  lack;  she  felt 
like  a  dress-shirt  that  a  careless  washerwoman  had  forgotten 
to  starch.  The  giggling  of  the  passers-by  and  the  manifest 
unpopularity  of  her  opinions  pricked  her  to  tears,  and  she 
mournfully  perceived  that  she  had  ceased  to  be  a  poet.  For 
that  the  day  was  given  over  to  a  high  melancholy  of  grey 
clouds,  which  did  not  let  the  least  stain  of  weak  autumn  sun- 
light discolour  the  black  majesty  of  the  Castle  Rock,  and  that 
a  bold  wind  played  with  the  dull  clothes  of  the  Edinburgh  folk 
and  swelled  them  out  into  fantastic  shapes  like  cloaks  carried 
by  grandees,  were  as  nothing  to  her  because  the  hurricane  tore 
the  short  ends  of  her  hair  from  under  her  hat  and  made  them 
straggle  on  her  forehead.  "I  doubt  if  I'll  be  able  to  appreciate 
Keats  if  this  goes  on,"  she  meditated  gloomily.  And  the 
people  that  went  by,  instead  of  being  as  usual  mere  provoca- 
tion for  her  silent  laughter,  had  to-day  somehow  got  power 
over  her  and  tormented  her  by  making  her  suspect  the  worth- 
lessness  of  her  errand.  It  seemed  the  height  of  folly  to  work 
for  the  race  if  the  race  was  like  this:  men  who,  if  they  had 

50 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  51 

dignity,  looked  cold  and  inaccessible  to  fine  disastrous  causes ; 
men  who  were  without  dignity  and  base  as  monkeys;  moun- 
tainous old  men  who  looked  bland  because  the  crevices  of  their 
expressions  had  been  filled  up  with  fat,  but  who  showed  in 
the  glares  they  gave  her  and  her  papers  an  immense  expert- 
ness  in  coarse  malice;  hen-like  genteel  women  with  small 
mouths  and  mean  little  figures  that  tried  for  personality  with 
trimmings  and  feather  boas  and  all  other  adornments  irrele- 
vant to  the  structure  of  the  human  body ;  flappers  who  swung 
scarlet  bows  on  their  plaits  and  otherwise  assailed  their  Pres- 
byterian environment  by  glad  cries  of  the  appearance;  and  on 
all  these  faces  the  smirk  of  superior  sagacity  that  vulgar  people 
give  to  the  untriumphant  ideal.  "I  must  work  out  the  ethics 
of  suicide  this  evening,"  thought  Ellen  chokingly,  "for  if  the 
world's  like  this  it's  the  wisest  thing  to  do.  But  not,  of  course, 
until  mother's  gone." 

She  mechanically  offered  a  paper  to  a  passing  flapper,  who 
rejected  it  with  a  scornful  exclamation,  "  'Deed  no,  Ellen  Mel- 
ville! I  think  you're  mad."  Ellen  recognised  her  as  a  de- 
spised schoolfellow  and  gnashed  her  teeth  at  being  treated 
like  this  by  a  poor  creature  who  habitually  got  thirty  per  cent, 
in  her  arithmetic  examination.  "Mad,  am  I?  Not  so  mad 
as  you,  my  dear,  thinking  you  look  like  Phyllis  Dare  with  yon 
wee,  wee  pigtail.  You  evidently  haven't  realised  that  a  Scotch 
girl  can't  help  looking  sensible.  That  graceful  butterfly  frivol- 
ity that  comes  so  easy  to  the  English,  and,  I've  haird,  the 
French,  is  not  for  us.  I  think  it's  something  about  our  ankles 
that  prevents  us."  She  looked  at  the  girl's  feet,  said  "Ay !"  in 
a  manner  that  hinted  that  they  confirmed  her  theory,  and 
turned  away,  remarking  over  her  shoulder,  "Mind  you,  I  ad- 
mire your  spirit,  setting  out  to  look  like  one  of  these  light 
English  actresses  when  your  name's  Davidina  Todd."  The 
wind  was  trying  to  tear  the  poster  from  the  cord  that  held  it  to 
her  waist,  the  cold  was  making  her  sniff,  and  as  she  gave  her 
back  to  this  flimsy  little  fool  she  caught  sight  of  a  minister 
standing  a  yard  or  two  away  and  giggling  "Tee  hee !"  at  her. 
It  was  too  much.  She  darted  down  on  him.  "Are  you  not 
Mr.  Hunter  of  the  Middleton  Place  United  Free  Church?" 
she  asked,  making  her  voice  sound  soft  and  cuddly. 


52  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

He  wiped  the  facetiousness  from  his  face  and  assented  with 
a  polite  bob.  Perhaps  she  was  the  daughter  of  an  elder. 
Quite  nice  people  were  taking  up  this  nonsense. 

"I  heard  you  preach  last  Sunday,"  she  said,  glowing  with 
interest.  He  began  to  look  coy.  Then  her  voice  changed  to 
something  colder  than  the  wind.  "The  most  lamentable  sair- 
mon  I  ever  listened  to.  Neither  lairning  nor  inspiration.  And 
a  read  sairmon,  too." 

As  his  black  back  threaded  through  the  traffic  remorse  fell 
upon  her.  "Here's  an  opportunity  for  doing  quiet,  uncom- 
plaining service  to  the  Cause,"  she  reproached  herself,  "and 
I'm  turning  it  into  a  fair  picnic  for  my  tongue."  Everyone 
was  rubbish,  and  she  herself  was  no  exception.  Her  hair  was 
nearly  down.  And  she  had  to  stay  there  for  another  hour. 

But  she  determined  to  endure  it;  and  Richard  Yaverland, 
who  afar  off  had  formed  the  intention  of  stopping  and  speak- 
ing to  the  girl  with  the  poster  because  she  had  such  hair,  was 
suddenly  reminded  by  the  comic  and  romantic  quality  of  her 
attitude  that  this  was  the  typist  he  had  met  on  the  previous 
evening,  whose  manifest  discontent  and  ambition  had  come 
into  his  mind  more  than  once  during  his  sleepless  night  and 
had  distressed  him  until  some  recollected  gesture  or  accent 
made  him  laugh.  He  slightly  resented  this  recognition  and  the 
change  it  worked  on  his  emotional  tone.  For  he  was  com- 
pelled to  think  of  her  as  a  human  being  and  be  sorry  because 
she  was  plainly  cold  and  miserable;  and  it  was  his  desire  to 
look  on  women  with  a  magpie  thievish  eye  and  no  concern  for 
their  souls.  Considering  the  part  that  most  of  them  played 
in  life  it  was  unwarrantable  of  them  to  have  souls.  The  din- 
ner that  one  eats  does  not  presume  to  have  a  soul.  But  the 
happy  freedom  of  the  voluptuary  was  not  for  him;  against 
his  will  there  lived  in  him  something  sombre  and  kind  that 
was  sensitive  to  spiritual  things  and  despondent  but  power- 
fully vigilant  about  the  happiness  of  other  people.  He  said 
to  himself,  "That  little  girl  is  pretty  well  done  up.  She's 
nearly  crying.  Someone  must  have  been  rude  to  her."  (He 
did  not  know  his  Ellen  yet.)  "I  must  give  her  a  moment  to 
get  her  poor  little  face  straight."  So  until  he  drew  level  with 
her  his  dark  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  Castle  Rock. 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  53 

And  Ellen  thought,  "Why,  here  is  the  big  man  who  has 
been  in  Spain  and  South  America  and  has  the  queer  stains  on 
his  hands!  How  big  he  is,  and  dark!  He  looks  like  a  king 
among  these  other  people.  And  how  wonderful  his  eyes  are ! 
He  is  miles  away  from  here,  seeing  some  distant  beautiful 
thing.  Perhaps  that  mountainside  he  told  us  about  where  the 
reflection  of  the  sky  is  like  a  purple  shadow  on  the  snow.  A 
poet  must  look  like  that  when  he  is  thinking  of  a  poem.  But — 
but — if  he  keeps  on  staring  up  there  he  won't  see  me  and  buy 
a  paper.  I  should  like  to  interest  him  in  the  Cause.  And  I 
daren't  speak  to  him."  She  flushed.  Though  Mr.  Philip's 
claw  had  not  done  all  the  hurt  it  hoped,  it  had  yet  mauled  its 
victim  cruelly.  "That  would  look  bold." 

But  in  the  nick  of  time  his  eyes  fell  on  her.  He  gave  a 
start  of  surprise  and  said  in  his  kind,  insolent  voice: 

"Good  morning.     So  you're  a  Suffragette." 

She  was  pleased  to  be  publicly  recognised  by  such  a  splendid 
person,  and  answered  shyly;  but  caught  a  glint  in  his  eyes 
which  reminded  her  that  she  wasn't  perfectly  sure  that  he 
really  had  thought  she  was  thinking  of  the  Argentine  when  she 
had  proposed  writing  to  Brazil  in  Spanish.  Was  it  possible 
that  he  was  not  being  entirely  respectful  to  her?  She  would 
not  have  that,  for  she  was  splendid  herself  too,  though  the 
idiot  world  had  given  her  no  chance  to  show  it.  She  pulled 
herself  together,  knitted  her  brows,  and  looked  as  much  like 
Mr.  Gladstone  as  could  be  managed  with  such  a  pliable  pro- 
file. 

"Sell  me  one  of  your  papers,"  he  said.  "No,  don't  bother 
about  the  change.  The  Cause  can  let  itself  go  on  the  odd 
elevenpence.  Well,  I  think  you're  wonderful  to  stand  out  here 
in  this  awful  weather  with  all  these  blighters  going  by." 

"When  one  is  wrapped  up  in  a  great  Cause,"  replied  Ellen 
superbly,  "one  hardly  notices  these  minor  discomforts.  Will 
you  not  take  a  ticket  for  the  meeting  next  Friday  at  the  Synod 
Hall?  Mrs.  Ormiston  and  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle  are  speaking.  The 
tickets  are  half-a-crown  and  a  shilling.  But  you'll  find  the 
shilling  ones  quite  good,  for  they're  both  exceptionally  clear 
and  audible  speakers.  Women  are." 

"Next  Friday?    Yes,  I  can  come  up  that  night.     Are  you 


54  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

taking  the  chair,  or  seconding  the  resolution,  or  anything  like 
that?" 

"Me  ?  Mercy,  no !"  gasped  Ellen.  Had  he  really  been  taken 
in  by  her  bluff  that  she  was  grown-up  ?  For  she  had  a  feeling, 
which  she  would  never  admit  even  to  herself  but  which  came 
to  her  nearly  every  day,  that  she  was  a  truant  child  masquer- 
ading in  long  skirts,  and  that  at  any  moment  someone  might 
come  and  with  the  bleak  unanswerable  authority  of  a  school- 
mistress order  her  back  to  her  short  frocks  and  the  class-room. 
But  this  was  nonsense,  for  she  really  was  grown-up.  She  was 
seventeen  past  and  earning.  "No.  I'll  be  stewarding  and 
selling  literature." 

"Good."  He  handed  her  half-a-crown  and  took  the  ticket 
from  her,  folded  it  across,  hesitated,  and  asked  appealingly: 
"I  say,  hadn't  you  better  write  your  name  on  this?  I  once 
went  to  a  Suffrage  meeting  in  Glasgow  and  they  wouldn't  let 
me  in  because  they  thought  I  looked  the  sort  of  person  who 
would  interrupt.  But  if  you  wrote  your  name  on  my  ticket 
they'll  know  I'm  all  right."  He  gave  her  a  pencil-stump,  and 
as  she  wrote  reflected:  "How  do  I  come  to  be  such  a  fluent 
liar?  I  didn't  get  it  from  my  mother.  No,  not  from  my 
mother.  I  suppose  my  father  had  that  vice  as  well  as  the 
others.  But  why  am  I  taking  so  much  trouble  to  find  out 
about  this  little  girl — I  who  don't  care  a  damn  about  anything 
or  anybody?" 

He  smiled  when  he  took  back  the  card,  and  with  some  diffi- 
culty, for  she  had  tried  to  impart  an  impressive  frenzy  to  her 
round  hand,  read  her  signature.  Ellen  Melville  was  a  ridicu- 
lous name  for  one  of  the  most  beautiful  people  who  have  ever 
lived.  It  was  like  climbing  to  a  towered  castle  on  a  high 
eagle-haunted  cliff  and  finding  that  it  was  called  "Seaview." 
She  was  amazingly  beautiful  now,  burning  against  the  grey 
weather  with  her  private  fire;  and  she  had  been  beautiful  the 
night  before,  in  that  baggy  blue  overall  that  only  the  most 
artless  female  creature  would  have  worn.  But  she  had  looked 
even  younger  then;  he  remembered  how,  as  she  had  opened 
the  door,  she  had  lifted  a  glowing  and  receptive  face  like  a 
child  who  had  been  having  a  lovely  time  at  a  party.  It  oc- 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  55 

curred  to  him  to  question  what  the  lovely  time  that  she  had 
been  having  in  that  dreary  office  could  possibly  be.  And  into 
the  pretty  print  of  the  scene  on  his  mind,  like  a  humped  marine 
beast  rising  through  a  summer  sea,  there  obtruded  the  recol- 
lection of  the  little  solicitor,  the  graceless  embarrassment  that 
he  had  shown  at  the  beginning  of  the  interview  by  purpose- 
less rubbings  of  his  hands  and  twisting  of  the  ankles,  the 
revelation  of  ugly  sexual  quality  which  he  had  given  by  his 
shame  at  the  story  of  the  bed  that  was  made  an  altar.  He 
looked  at  her  sharply  and  said  to  himself :  "I  wonder  .  .  ." 

Oh,  surely  not !  The  note  of  her  face  was  pure  expectancy. 
As  yet  she  had  come  upon  nothing  fundamental  of  any  kind. 
He  had  no  prepossessions  in  favour  of  innocence,  and  he  put 
people  who  did  not  make  love  in  the  same  class  as  vegetarians, 
but  he  was  immensely  relieved.  He  would  have  hated  this 
fine  thing  to  have  fallen  into  clumsy  hands. 

There  was,  he  realised,  not  the  smallest  excuse  for  staying 
with  her  any  longer.  "Good-bye;  I  hope  I'll  see  you  at  the 
meeting,"  he  said;  and  then,  since  he  remembered  how  keen 
she  was  on  being  businesslike,  "and  look  after  my  villa  for 
me." 

"Yes,  we'll  do  that,"  she  said  competently,  and  looked  after 
him  with  smiling  eyes.  "Oh,  he  looks  most  adventurous !" 
she  thought.  "I  wonder,  now,  if  he's  ever  killed  a  man?" 

ii 

"Is  my  frock  hooked  up  all  the  way  down?"  wondered 
Ellen,  as  she  stood  with  her  back  to  a  pillar  in  the  Synod  Hall. 
"Not  that  I  care  a  button  about  it  myself,  but  for  the  sake  of 
the  Cause  .  .  ."  But  that  small  worry  was  just  one  dark  leaf 
floating  on  the  quick  sunlit  river  of  her  mind,  for  she  was  very 
happy  and  excited  at  these  Suffrage  meetings.  She  had  taken 
seven  shillings  and  sixpence  for  pamphlets,  the  hall  was  rilling 
up  nicely,  and  Miss  Traquair  and  Dr.  Katherine  Kennedy  and 
Miss  Mackenzie  and  several  members  of  the  local  militant 
suffrage  society  had  spoken  to  her  as  they  went  to  their  places 
just  as  if  they  counted  her  grown-up  and  one  of  themselves. 
And  she  was  flushed  with  the  sense  of  love  and  power  that 


56  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

comes  of  comradeship.  She  looked  back  into  the  hideous 
square  hall,  with  its  rows  of  chattering  anticipant  people,  and 
up  to  the  gallery  packed  with  faces  dyed  yellowish  drab  by 
the  near  unmitigated  gas  sunburst,  and  she  smiled  brilliantly^ 
All  these  people  were  directing  their  attention  and  enthusiasm 
to  the  same  end  as  herself :  would  feel  no  doubt  the  same 
tightness  of  throat  as  the  heroic  women  came  on  the  plat- 
form, and  would  sanctify  the  emotion  as  sane  by  sharing  it; 
and  by  their  willingness  to  co-operate  in  rebellion  were  mak- 
ing her  individual  rebellious  will  seem  less  like  a  schoolgirl's 
penknife  and  more  like  a  soldier's  sword.  "I'm  being  a  po- 
litikon  Zoon!"  she  boasted  to  herself.  She  had  always  liked 
the  expression  when  she  read  it  in  The  Scotsman  Leaders. 

And  here  they  were !  The  audience  made  a  tumult  that  was 
half  applause  and  half  exclamation  at  a  prodigy,  and  the  three 
women  who  made  their  way  on  the  platform  seemed  to  be 
moving  through  the  noise  as  through  a  viscid  element.  The 
woman  doctor,  who  was  to  be  the  chairman,  lowered  her  curly 
grey  head  against  it  buttingly;  Mrs.  Ormiston,  the  mother  of 
the  famous  rebels  Brynhild,  Melissa,  and  Guendolen,  and 
herself  a  heroine,  lifted  a  pale  face  where  defiance  dwelt 
among  the  remains  of  dark  loveliness  like  a  beacon  lit  on  a 
grey  castle  keep;  and  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle,  a  white  and  golden 
wonder  in  a  beautiful  bright  dress,  moved  swimmingly  about 
and  placed  herself  on  a  chair  like  a  fastidious  lily  choosing 
its  vase.  Oh !  it  was  going  to  be  lovely !  Wasn't  it  ridiculous 
of  that  man  Yaverland  to  have  stayed  away  and  missed  all 
this  glory,  to  say  nothing  of  wasting  a  good  half-crown  and 
a  ticket  which  someone  might  have  been  glad  of?  It  just 
showed  that  men  were  hopeless  and  there  was  no  doing  any- 
thing for  them. 

But  then  suddenly  she  saw  him.  He  was  standing  at  one 
of  the  entrances  on  the  other  side  of  the  hall,  looking  tre- 
mendous and  strange  in  a  peaked  cap  and  raindashed  oilskins, 
as  though  he  had  recently  stood  on  a  heeling  deck  and  shouted 
orders  to  cutlassed  seamen,  and  he  was  staring  at  the  tumult 
as  if  he  regarded  noise  as  a  mutiny  of  inferiors  against  his 
preference  for  calm.  By  his  side  a  short-sighted  steward  bent 
interminably  over  his  ticket.  "The  silly  gowk!"  fumed  Ellen. 


CHAPTER  H  THE  JUDGE  57 

"Can  the  woman  not  read?  It  looks  so  inefficient,  and  I  want 
him  to  think  well  of  the  movement."  Presently,  with  a  suave 
and  unimpatient  gesture,  he  took  his  ticket  away  from  the 
peering  woman  and  read  her  the  number.  "I  like  him!"  said 
Ellen.  "There's  many  would  have  snapped  at  her  for  that." 

She  liked,  too,  the  way  he  got  to  his  seat  without  disturbing 
his  neighbours,  and  the  neathandedness  with  which  he  took  off 
his  cap  and  oilskins  and  fell  to  wiping  a  pair  of  motor-goggles 
while  his  eyes  maintained  a  dark  glance,  too  intense  to  flash,  on 
the  women  on  the  platform.  "How  long  he  is  looking  at 
them!"  she  said  to  herself  presently.  "No  doubt  he  is  taken 
up  by  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle.  I  believe  such  men  are  very  suscep- 
tible to  beautiful' women.  I  hope,"  she  continued  with  sudden 
bitterness,  "he  is  as  susceptible  to  spiritual  beauty  and  will 
take  heed  of  Mrs.  Ormiston!"  With  that,  she  tried  herself 
to  look  at  Mrs.  Ormiston,  but  found  she  could  not  help  watch- 
ing the  clever  way  he  went  on  cleaning  the  goggles  while  his 
eyes  and  attention  were  fixed  otherwhere.  There  was  some- 
thing ill-tempered  about  his  movements  which  made  her  want 
to  go  dancingly  across  and  say  teasing  things  to  him.  Yet 
when  a  smile  at  some  private  thought  suggested  by  the  speech 
broke  his  attention,  and  he  began  to  look  round  the  hall,  she 
was  filled  with  panic  at  the  prospect  of  meeting  his  eyes.  She 
did  not  permit  herself  irrational  emotions,  so  she  pretended 
that  what  she  was  feeling  was  not  terror  of  this  man,  but  the 
anger  of  a  feminist  against  all  men,  and  stared  fiercely  at 
the  platform,  crying  out  silently:  "What  have  I  to  do  with 
this  man?  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  man  until  I 
am  great.  Then  I  suppose  I  will  have  to  use  them  as  pawns 
in  my  political  and  financial  intrigues." 

Through  this  gaping  at  the  client  from  Rio  she  had  missed 
the  chairman's  speech.  Dr.  Munro  had  just  sat  down.  Her 
sensible  square  face  looked  red  and  stern,  as  though  she  had 
just  been  obliged  to  smack  someone,  and  from  the  tart  brevity 
of  the  applause  it  was  evident  that  that  was  what  she  had 
been  doing.  This  rupture  of  the  bright  occasion  struck  Ellen, 
who  found  herself  suddenly  given  over  to  irritations,  as  char- 
acteristic of  the  harshness  of  Edinburgh  life.  Here  was  a 
cause  so  beautiful  in  its  affirmation  of  freedom  that  it  should 


58  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

have  been  served  only  by  the  bravery  of  dignified  women  and 
speeches  lucent  with  reason  and  untremulously  spoken,  by 
things  that  would  require  no  change  of  quality  but  only  re- 
arrangements to  be  instantly  commemorable  by  art ;  and  yet  this 
Scotch  woman,  moving  with  that  stiffness  of  the  mental  joints 
which  nations  which  suffer  from  it  call  conscientiousness,  had 
managed  to  turn  a  sacramental  gathering  of  the  faithful  into 
a  steamy  short-tempered  activity,  like  washing-day.  "Think 
shame  on  yourself,  Ellen  Melville!"  she  rebuked  herself. 
"She's  a  better  woman  than  ever  you'll  be,  with  the  grand 
work  she's  done  at  the  Miller's  Wynd  Dispensary."  But  that 
the  doctor  was  a  really  fine  woman  made  the  horsehair  texture 
of  her  manner  all  the  more  unpleasing,  for  it  showed  her  sin- 
isterly  illustrative  of  a  community  which  had  reached  an 
intellectual  standard  that  could  hardly  be  bettered  and  which 
possessed  certain  moral  energy,  and  yet  was  content  to  be 
rude.  Amongst  these  people  Ellen  felt  herself,  with  her  per- 
petual tearful  desire  that  everybody  should  be  nice,  to  be  a 
tenuous  and  transparent  thing.  She  doubted  if  she  would 
ever  be  able  to  contend  with  such  as  they.  "Maybe  I  shall 
not  get  on  after  all!"  she  thought,  and  her  heart  turned  over 
with  fear. 

But  Mrs.  Ormiston  was  speaking  now.  Oh,  it  was  treason 
to  complain  against  the  world  when  it  held  anything  so  fine 
as  this !  She  stood  very  far  forward  on  the  platform,  and  it 
seemed  as  though  she  had  no  friends  in  the  world  but  did  not 
care.  Beauty  was  hers,  and  her  white  face,  with  its  delicate 
square  jaw  and  rounded  temples,  recalled  the  pansy  by  its 
shape.  She  wore  a  dress  of  deep  purple,  that  colour  which  is 
almost  a  sound,  an  emotion,  which  is  seen  by  the  mind's  eye 
when  one  hears  great  music.  Her  hoarse,  sweet  North-country 
voice  rushed  forth  like  a  wind  bearing  the  sounds  of  a  battle- 
field, the  clash  of  arms,  the  curses  hurled  at  an  implacable  and 
brutish  enemy,  the  sights  of  the  dying — for  already  some  had 
died;  and  with  a  passion  that  preserved  her  words  from  the 
common  swift  mortality  of  spoken  things  she  told  stories  of 
her  followers'  brave  deeds  which  seemed  to  remain  in  the  air 
and  deck  the  hall  like  war-tattered  standards.  She  spoke  of 
the  women  who  were  imprisoned  at  Birmingham  for  inter- 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  59 

rupting  Mr.  Asquith's  meeting,  and  how  they  lay  now  day 
and  night  in  the  black  subterranean  prison  cells,  huddled  on 
the  tree-stumps  that  were  the  only  seats,  clad  in  nothing  but 
coarse  vests  because  they  would  not  wear  the  convict  clothes, 
breathing  the  foul  sewage-tainted  air  for  all  but  that  hour 
when  they  were  carried  up  to  the  cell  where  the  doctor  and 
the  wardresses  waited  to  bind  and  gag  them  and  ram  the 
long  feeding-tube  down  into  their  bodies.  This  they  had  en- 
dured for  six  weeks,  and  would  for  six  weeks  more.  She 
spoke  with  a  proud  reticence  as  to  her  sufferings,  about  her 
recent  sojourn  in  Holloway,  from  which  she  had  gained  re- 
lease by  hunger-striking  a  fortnight  before. 

"Ah,  I  could  die  for  her!"  cried  Ellen  to  herself,  wet-eyed 
with  loyalty.  "If  only  it  weren't  for  mother  I'd  go  to  prison 
to-morrow."  Her  love  could  hardly  bear  it  when  Mrs.  Ormis- 
ton  went  on,  restrained  rage  freezing  her  words,  to  indict 
the  conspiracy  of  men  that  had  driven  her  and  her  followers 
to  revolt :  the  refusal  to  women  of  a  generous  education,  of  a 
living  wage,  of  opportunities  for  professional  distinction;  the 
social  habit  of  amused  contempt  at  women's  doings ;  the  mean- 
ness that  used  a  woman's  capacity  for  mating  and  motherhood 
to  bind  her  a  slave  either  of  the  kitchen  or  of  the  streets.  All 
these  things  Ellen  knew  to  be  true,  because  she  was  poor  and 
had  had  to  drink  life  with  the  chill  on,  but  it  did  not  sadden 
her  to  have  her  reluctant  views  confirmed  by  the  woman  she 
thought  the  wisest  in  the  world,  for  she  felt  an  exaltation  that 
she  was  afraid  must  make  her  eyes  look  wild.  It  had  always 
appeared  to  her  that  certain  things  which  in  the  main  were 
sombre,  such  as  deep  symphonies  of  an  orchestra,  the  black 
range  and  white  scaurs  of  the  Pentland  Hills  against  the  south 
horizon,  the  idea  that  at  death  one  dies  utterly  and  is  buried 
in  the  earth,  were  patterns  cut  from  the  stuff  of  reality.  They 
were  relevant  to  fate,  typical  of  life,  in  a  way  that  gayer  things, 
like  the  song  of  girls  or  the  field-checked  pleasantness  of  plains 
or  the  dream  of  a  soul's  holiday  in  eternity,  were  not.  And  in 
the  bitter  eloquence  of  this  pale  woman  she  rapturously  recog- 
nised that  same  authentic  quality. 

But  what  good  was  it  if  one  woman  had  something  of  the 
dignity  of  nature  and  art?  Everybody  knew  that  the  world 


60  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

was  beautiful.  She  sent  her  mind  out  from  the  hall  to  walk 
in  the  night,  which  was  not  wet,  yet  had  a  bloom  of  rain  in  the 
air,  so  that  the  lights  shone  with  a  plumy  beam  and  all  roads 
seemed  to  run  to  a  soft  white  cliff.  Above,  the  Castle  Rock 
was  invisible,  but  certainly  cut  strange  beautiful  shapes  out 
of  the  mist;  beneath  it  lay  the  Gardens,  a  moat  of  darkness, 
raising  to  the  lighted  street  beyond  terraces  planted  with  rough 
autumn  flowers  that  would  now  be  close-curled  balls  curiously 
trimmed  with  dew,  and  grass  that  would  make  placid  squelch- 
ing noises  under  the  feet ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  Gardens  were 
the  two  Greek  temples  that  held  the  town's  pictures — the  Tie- 
polo,  which  shows  Pharaoh's  daughter  walking  in  a  fardin- 
gale  of  gold  with  the  negro  page  to  find  a  bambino  Moses 
kicking  in  Venetian  sunlight ;  the  Raeburns,  coarse  and  whole- 
some as  a  home-made  loaf ;  the  lent  Whistler  collection  like  a 
hive  of  butterflies.  And  at  the  Music  Hall  Frederick  Lamond 
was  playing  Beethoven.  How  his  strong  hands  would  beat 
out  the  music!  Oh,  as  to  the  beauty  of  the  world  there  was 
no  question! 

But  people  weren't  as  nice  as  things.  Humanity  was  no 
more  than  an  ugly  parasite  infesting  the  earth.  The  vile 
quality  of  men  and  women  could  hardly  be  exaggerated.  There 
was  Miss  Coates,  the  secretary  of  the  Anti-Suffrage  Society, 
who  had  come  to  this  meeting  from  some  obscure  motive  of 
self-torture  and  sat  quite  close  by,  jerking  her  pale  face  about 
in  the  shadow  of  a  wide,  expensive  hat  (it  was  always  women 
like  that,  Ellen  acidly  remarked,  who  could  afford  good  clothes) 
as  she  was  seized  by  convulsions  of  contempt  for  the  speaker 
and  the  audience.  Ellen  knew  her  very  well,  for  every  Sat- 
urday morning  she  used  to  stride  up  in  an  emerald  green  sports 
skirt,  holding  out  a  penny  in  a  hand  that  shook  with  rage,  and 
saying  something  indistinct  about  women  biting  policemen.  On 
these  occasions  Ellen  was  physically  afraid,  for  she  could 
not  overcome  a  fancy  that  the  anklebones  which  projected  in 
geological-looking  knobs  on  each  side  of  Miss  Coates's  large 
flat  brogues  were  a  natural  offensive  weapon  like  the  spurs  of 
a  cock ;  and  she  was  afraid  also  in  her  soul.  Miss  Coates  was 
plainly,  from  her  yellow  but  animated  pallor,  from  her  habit 
of  wearing  her  blouse  open  at  the  neck  to  show  a  triangle 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  61 

of  chest  over  which  the  horizontal  bones  lay  like  the  bars  of  a 
gridiron,  a  mature  specimen  of  a  type  that  Ellen  had  met  in 
her  school-days.  There  had  been  several  girls  at  John  Thomp- 
son's, usually  bleached  and  ill-favoured  victims  of  ansemia  or 
spinal  curvature,  who  had  seemed  to  be  compelled  by  some- 
thing within  themselves  to  spend  their  whole  energies  in  try- 
ing, by  extravagances  of  hair-ribbon  and  sidecombs  and 
patent  leather  belts,  the  collection  of  actresses'  postcards,  and 
the  completest  abstention  from  study,  to  assert  the  femininity 
which  their  ill-health  had  obscured.  Their  efforts  were  never 
rewarded  by  the  companionship  of  any  but  the  most  shambling 
kind  of  man  or  boy;  but  they  proceeded  through  life  with  a 
greater  earnestness  than  other  children  of  their  age,  intent 
on  the  business  of  establishing  their  sex.  Miss  Coates  was 
plainly  the  adult  of  the  type,  who  had  found  in  Anti-Suffra- 
gism,  that  extreme  gesture  of  political  abasement  before  the 
male,  a  new  way  of  calling  attention  to  what  otherwise  only 
the  person  who  was  naturally  noticing  about  clothes  would 
detect.  It  was  a  fact  of  immense  and  dangerous  significance 
that  the  Government  and  the  majority  of  respectable  citizens 
were  on  the  side  of  this  pale,  sickly,  mad  young  woman  against 
the  brave,  beautiful  Mrs.  Ormiston.  People  were  horrible. 

And  there  was  Mr.  Philip. 

Oh,  why  had  she  thought  of  him  ?  All  the  time  that  she  had 
been  in  the  hall  she  had  forgotten  him,  but  now  he  had  come 
back  to  torture  her  untiringly,  as  he  had  done  all  that  week. 
It  had  been  all  very  well  for  her  to  run  through  the  darkness 
so  happily  that  evening,  unvexed  by  the  accusation  of  her 
boldness  because  she  was  not  bold,  for  she  had  not  then  known 
the  might  of  cruelty.  Indeed,  she  had  not  believed  that  any- 
body had  ever  hurt  anybody  deliberately,  except  long-dead 
soldiers  sent  by  mad  kings  to  make  what  history  books,  to 
mark  the  unusual  horror  of  the  event,  called  massacres.  She 
had  begun  to  know  better  late  last  Monday  afternoon.  She 
had  returned  to  her  little  room  after  taking  down  some  short- 
hand notes  from  dictation,  and,  because  there  was  a  thick,  ugly 
twilight  and  she  had  come  dazzled  by  the  crude  light  on  Mr. 
Mactavish  James's  desk,  had  moved  about  for  some  seconds, 
with  a  freedom  that  seemed  foolishness  as  soon  as  she  knew 


62  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

she  was  observed,  before  she  saw  that  Mr.  Philip  was  standing 
at  the  hearth. 

"Have  you  come  straight  off  the  train?"  it  was  in  her  mind 
to  say.  "Will  I  ask  Mrs.  Powell  to  get  you  some  tea?"  But 
he  looked  strange.  The  driving  flame  of  the  fipe  cast  flickering 
shadows  and  red  lights  on  the  shoulders  and  skirt  of  his  great- 
coat, so  he  looked  as  though  he  was  performing  some  evil  in- 
cantatory  dance  of  the  body,  while  his  face  and  hands  and 
feet  remained  black  and  still.  There  was  no  sound  of  his 
breath.  "Good  mercy  on  us !"  she  said  to  herself.  "Is  it  his 
wraith,  and  has  he  come  to  harm  in  London?"  But  the  dark 
patch  of  his  face  moved,  and  he  began  his  long  demonstration 
to  her  that  a  man  need  not  be  dead  to  be  dreadful.  "Is  there 
anything'  you  want  of  me,  Miss  Melville  ?"  the  clipped  voice 
had  asked.  It  was,  so-  plainly  the  cold  answer  to-  an  ogle  that 
she  gazed  about  her  for  some  person  who  deserved  this  re- 
proach and  whom  he  had  called  by  her  name  in  error.  But 
of  course  there  was  no  one,  and  she  realised  that  he  had  come 
back  from  London  her  enemy,  that  this  accusation  of  her  bold- 
ness was  to  be  the  favourite  weapon  of  his  enmity,  and  that 
he  found  it  the  more  serviceable  way  to  accuse  her  of  making 
advances  to  him  as  well  as  to  the  client  from  Rio. 

"I  want  nothing,"  she  said,  and  left  him.  Since  there  was 
nowhere  else  for  her  to  go,  she  was  obliged  to  wait  in  the 
lobby  beside  the  umbrella-stand  till  he  came  out,  quirked  his 
head  at  her  suspiciously,  and  went  into  his  father's  room. 
She  perceived  that  there  had  been  no  need  for  him  to  go  into 
her  room  save  his  desire  to  make  this  gesture  of  hate  towards 
her.  It  came  to  her  then  that,  although  an  accusation  could 
not  hurt  one  if  it  was  false,  the  accuser  could  hurt  by  the  evil 
spirit  he  discharged.  If  a  man  emptied  a  jug  of  water  over 
you  from  a  top  window  in  the  belief  that  you  were  a  cat,  the 
fact  that  you  were  not  a  cat  would  not  prevent  you  from  get- 
ting wet  through.  In  the  midst  of  her  alarm  she  smiled  at 
finding  an  apt  image.  There  were  still  intellectual  refuges. 
But  very  few.  Every  day  Mr.  Philip  convinced  her  how  few 
and  ineffectual.  He  never  now,  when  he  had  finished  dictat- 
ing, said,  "That's  all  for  the  present,  thank  you,"  but  let  an 
awkward  space  of  silence  fall,  and  then  enquired  with  an  affec- 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  63 

tation  of  patience,  "And  what  are  you  waiting  on,  Miss  Mel- 
ville?" He  treated  her  infrequent  errors  in  typing  as  if  she 
was  a  simpering  girl  who  was  trying  to  buy  idleness  with  her 
charm.  And  he  was  speaking  ill  of  her.  That  she  knew  from 
Mr.  Mactavish  James's  kindnesses,  which  brightened  the  mo- 
ment but  always  made  the  estimate  of  her  plight  more  dreary, 
since  just  so  might  a  gaoler  in  a  brigand's  cave  bring  a  pris- 
oner scraps  of  sweeter  food  and  drink  when  the  talk  of  her 
death  and  the  thought  of  her  youth  had  made  him  feel  ten- 
derly. Only  that  morning  he  had  padded  up  behind  Ellen 
and  set  a  white  parcel  by  her  typewriter.  "Here's  some  taiblet 
for  you,  lassie,"  he  had  said,  and  had  laid  a  loving,  clumsy  hand 
on  her  shoulder.  What  had  Mr.  Philip  been  saying  now? 
And  she  did  so  want  to  be  well  spoken  of.  But  there  was 
worse  than  that — something  so  bad  that  she  would  not  allow 
her  mind  to  harbour  any  visual  image  of  it,  but  thought  of  it 
in  a  harsh,  short  sentence.  "When  Mr.  Morrison  went  out  of 
the  room  and  we  were  left  alone  he  got  up  and  set  the  door 
ajar.  .  .  "  Something  weak  and  little  in  her  cried  out,  "Oh, 
God,  stop  Mr.  Philip  being  so  cruel  to  me  or  I  shall  die!" 
and  something  fiercer  said,  "I  will  kill  him.  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  roar  of  applause,  and  she  found  that  Mrs. 
Ormiston  had  finished  her  speech.  This  was  another  iniquity 
to  be  charged  against  Mr.  Philip.  The  thought  of  him  had 
robbed  her  of  heaven  knows  how  much  of  the  wisdom  of  her 
idol,  and  it  might  be  a  year  or  more  before  Mrs.  Ormiston 
came  to  Edinburgh  again.  She  could  have  cried  as  she  clapped, 
but  fortunately  there  was  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle  yet  to  speak.  She 
watched  the  advance  to  the  edge  of  the  platform  of  that  tall, 
beautiful  figure  in  the  shining  dress  which  it  would  have  been 
an  understatement  to  call  sky-blue,  unless  one  predicated  that 
the  sky  was  Italian,  and  rejoiced  that  nature  had  so  appro- 
priately given  such  a  saint  a  halo  of  gold  hair.  Then  came 
the  slow,  clear  voice  building  a  crystal  bridge  of  argument 
between  the  platform  and  the  audience,  and  formulating  with 
an  indignation  that  was  fierce,  yet  left  her  marmoreal,  an  in- 
dictment against  the  double  standard  of  morality  and  the 
treatment  of  unmarried  mothers. 

Ellen  clapped  loudly,  not  because  she  had  any  great  opinion 


64  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


of  unmarried  mothers,  whom  she  suspected  of  belonging  to  the 
same  type  of  woman  who  would  start  on  a  day's  steamer  ex- 
cursion and  then  find  that  she  had  forgotten  the  sandwiches, 
but  because  she  was  a  neat-minded  girl  and  could  not  abide  the 
State's  pretence  that  an  illegitimate  baby  had  only  one  parent 
when  everybody  knew  that  every  baby  had  really  two.  And 
she  fell  to  wondering  what  this  thing  was  that  men  did  to 
women.  There  was  certainly  some  definite  thing.  Children, 
she  was  sure,  came  into  the  world  because  of  some  kind  of 
embrace ;  and  she  had  learned  lately,  too,  that  women  who  were 
very  poor  sometimes  let  men  do  this  thing  to  them  for  money : 
such  were  the  women  whom  she  saw  in  John  Square,  when 
she  came  back  late  from  a  meeting  or  a  concert,  leaning  against 
the  garden-railings,  their  backs  to  the  lovely  nocturnal  mys- 
tery of  groves  and  moonlit  lawns,  and  their  faces  turned  to 
the  line  of  rich  men's  houses  which  mounted  out  of  the  night 
like  a  tall,  impregnable  fortress.  Some  were  grey-haired. 
Such  traffic  was  perilous  as  it  was  ugly,  for  somehow  there 
were  babies  who  were  born  blind  because  of  it !  That  was  the 
sum  of  her  knowledge.  What  followed  the  grave  kisses  shown 
in  pictures,  what  secret  Romeo  shared  with  Juliet,  she  did 
not  know,  she  would  not  know. 

Twice  she  had  refused  to  learn  the  truth.  Once  a  school- 
fellow named  Anna  McLellan,  a  minister's  daughter,  a  pale 
girl  with  straight,  yellow  hair  and  full,  whitish  lips,  had  tried 
to  tell  her  something  queer  about  married  people  as  they  were 
walking  along  Princes  Street,  and  Ellen  had  broken  away 
from  her  and  run  into  the  Gardens.  The  trees  and  grass  and 
dafTodils  had  seemed  not  only  beautiful  but  pleasantly  un- 
smirched  by  the  human  story.  And  in  the  garret  at  home,  in 
a  pile  of  her  father's  books,  she  had  once  found  a  medical 
volume  which  she  knew  from  the  words  on  its  cover  would 
tell  her  all  the  things  about  which  she  was  wondering.  She 
had  laid  her  fingers  between  its  leaves,  but  a  shivering  had 
come  upon  her,  and  she  ran  downstairs  very  quickly  and 
washed  her  hands.  These  memories  made  her  feel  restless 
and  unhappy,  and  she  drove  her  attention  back  to  the  platform 
and  beautiful  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle.  But  there  came  upon  her  a 
fantasy  that  she  was  standing  again  in  the  garret  with  that 


CHAPTER    II 


THE  JUDGE  65 


book  in  her  hands,  and  that  Mr.  Philip  was  leaning  against 
the  wall  in  that  dark  place  beyond  the  window  laughing  at 
her,  partly  because  she  was  such  a  wee  ninny  not  to  know, 
and  partly  because  when  she  did  know  the  truth  there  would 
be  something  about  it  which  would  humiliate  her.  She  cast 
down  her  eyes  and  stared  at  the  floor  so  that  none  might  see 
how  close  she  was  to  tears.  She  was  a  silly  weak  thing  that 
would  always  feel  like  a  bairn  on  its  first  day  at  school;  she 
was  being  tormented  by  Mr.  Philip.  Even  the  very  facts  of 
life  had  been  planned  to  hurt  her. 

Oh,  to  be  like  that  man  from  Rio !  It  was  his  splendid  fate 
to  be  made  tall  and  royal,  to  be  the  natural  commander  of  all 
men  from  the  moment  that  he  ceased  to  be  a  child.  He  could 
captain  his  ship  through  the  steepest  seas  and  fight  the  pirate 
frigate  till  there  was  nothing  between  him  and  the  sunset 
but  a  few  men  clinging  to  planks  and  a  shot-torn  black  flag* 
floating  on  the  waves  like  a  rag  of  seaweed.  For  rest  he 
would  steer  to  small  islands,  where  singing  birds  would  fly 
out  of  woods  and  perch  on  the  rigging,  and  brown  men  would 
come  and  run  aloft  and  wreathe  the  masts  with  flowers,  and 
shy  women  with  long,  loose,  black  hair  would  steal  out  and 
offer  palm-wine  in  conches,  while  he  smiled  aloofly  and  was 
gracious.  It  would  not  matter  where  he  sailed ;  at  no  port  in 
the  world  would  sorrow  wait  for  him,  and  everywhere  there 
would  be  pride  and  honour  and  stars  pinned  to  his  rough 
coat  by  grateful  kings.  And  if  he  fell  in  love  with  a  beautiful 
woman  he  would  go  away  from  her  at  once  and  do  splendid 
things  for  her  sake.  And  when  he  died  there  would  be  a 
lying-in-state  in  a  great  cathedral,  where  emperors  and  princes 
would  file  past  and  shiver  as  they  looked  on  the  white,  stern 
face  and  the  stiff  hands  clasped  on  the  hilt  of  his  sword,  be- 
cause now  they  had  lost  their  chief  defender.  Oh,  he  was  too 
grand  to  be  known,  of  course,  but  it  was  a  joy  to  think-of  him. 

She  looked  across  the  hall  at  him.    Their  eyes  met. 


in 

There  had  mounted  in  him,  as  he  rode  through  the  damp 
night  on  his  motor-cycle,  such  an  inexplicable  and  intense  ex- 


66  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

hilaration,  that  this  ugly  hall  which  was  at  the  end  of  his 
journey,  with  its  stone  corridors  in  which  a  stream  of  people 
wearing  mackintoshes  and  carrying  umbrellas  made  sad 
noises  with  their  feet,  seemed  an  anti-climax.  It  was  absurd 
that  he  should  feel  like  that,  for  he  had  known  quite  well  why 
he  was  coming  into  Edinburgh  and  what  a  Suffrage  meeting 
would  be  like.  But  he  was  angry  and  discontented,  and  im- 
patient that  no  deflecting  adventure  had  crossed  his  path,  until 
he  arrived  at  the  door  which  led  to  the  half-crown  seats  and 
saw  across  the  hall  that  girl  called  Ellen  Melville.  The  coarse 
light  deadened  the  brilliance  of  her  hair,  so  that  it  might  have 
been  but  a  brightly  coloured  tam-o'-shanter  she  was  wearing; 
and  now  that  that  obvious  beauty  was  not  there  to  hypnotise 
the  eye  the  subtler  beauty  of  her  face  and  body  got  its  chance. 
"I  had  remembered  her  all  wrong,"  he  said  to  himself.  "I 
was  thinking  of  her  as  a  little  girl,  but  she's  a  beautiful  and 
dignified  woman."  And  yet  her  profile,  which  showed  against 
the  dark  pillar  at  which  she  stood,  was  very  round  and  young 
and  surprised,  and  altogether  much  more  infantile  than  the 
proud  full  face  which  she  turned  on  the  world.  There  was 
something  about  her,  too,  which  he  could  not  identify,  which 
made  him  feel  the  sharp  yet  almost  anguished  delight  that  is 
caused  by  the  spectacle  of  a  sunset  or  a  foam-patterned  break- 
ing wave,  or  any  other  beauty  that  is  intense  but  on  the  point 
of  dissolution. 

The  defile  of  some  women  on  to  the  platform  and  a  clamour 
of  clapping  reminded  him  that  he  had  better  be  getting  to  his 
seat,  and  he  found  that  the  steward  to  whom  he  had  given  his 
ticket,  a  sallow  young  woman  with  projecting  teeth,  was  holding 
it  close  to  her  eyes  with  one  hand  and  using  the  other  to  fumble 
in  a  leather  bag  for  some  glasses  which  manifestly  were  not 
there.  He  felt  sorry  for  her  because  she  was  not  beautiful  like 
Ellen  Melville.  Did  she  grieve  at  it,  he  wondered;  or  had 
she,  like  most  plain  women,  some  scrap  of  comeliness,  slender 
ankles  or  small  hands,  which  she  pathetically  invested  with  a 
magic  quality  and  believed  to  be  more  subtly  and  authentically 
beautiful  than  the  specious  pictorial  quality  of  other  women? 
In  any  case  she  must  often  have  been  stung  by  the  exasperation 
of  those  at  whom  she  gawked.  He  took  the  ticket  back  from 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  67 

her  and  told  her  the  number  of  his  seat.  It  was  far  forward, 
and  as  he  sat  down  and  looked  up  at  the  platform  he  saw  how 
vulgarly  mistaken  he  had  been  in  thinking — as  just  for  the 
moment  that  the  sallow  woman  with  the  teeth  had  stooped 
and  fumbled  beside  him  he  certainly  had  thought — that  the 
Suffrage  movement  was  a  fusion  of  the  discontents  of  the 
unfit.  These  people  on  the  platform  were  real  women.  The 
speaker  who  had  risen  to  open  the  meeting  was  a  jolly  woman 
like  a  cook,  with  short  grey  curly  hair;  and  her  red  face  was 
like  the  Scotch  face — the  face  that  he  had  looked  on  many 
a  time  in  all  parts  of  the  world  and  had  always  been  glad  to 
see,  since  where  it  was  there  was  sense  and  courage.  She 
was  the  image  of  old  Captain  Guthrie  of  the  Gondomar,  and 
Dr.  Macalister  at  the  Port  Said  hospital,  and  that  medical 
missionary  who  had  come  home  on  the  Celebes  on  sick  leave 
from  Mukden.  Harsh  things  she  was  saying — harsh  things 
about  the  decent  Scotch  folks  who  were  shocked  by  the  arrest 
of  Suffragettes  in  London  for  brawling,  harsh  suggestions  that 
they  would  be  better  employed  being  shocked  at  the  number 
of  women  who  were  arrested  in  Edinburgh  for  solicitation. 

He  chuckled  to  think  that  the  Presbyterian  woman  had 
found  out  the  Presbyterian  man,  for  he  did  not  believe,  from 
his  knowledge  of  the  world,  that  any  man  was  ever  really  as 
respectable  as  the  Presbyterian  man  pretended  to  be.  The 
woman  who  sat  beside  her,  who  was  evidently  the  celebrated 
Mrs.  Ormiston,  was  also  a  personage.  She  had  not  the  same 
stamp  of  personal  worth,  but  she  had  the  indefinable  historic 
quality.  For  no  reason  to  be  formulated  by  the  mind,  her 
face  might  become  a  flag  to  many  thousands,  a  thing  to  die 
for,  and,  like  a  flag,  she  would  be  at  their  death  a  mere  martial 
mark  of  the  occasion,  with  no  meaning  of  pity. 

The  third  woman  he  detested.  Presumably  she  was  at  this 
meeting  because  she  was  a  loyal  Suffragist  and  wanted  to 
bring  an  end  to  the  subjection  of  woman,  yet  all  the  time  that 
the  other  woman  was  speaking  her  beautiful  body  practised 
fluid  poses  as  if  she  were  trying  to  draw  the  audience's  at- 
tention to  herself  and  give  them  facile  romantic  dreams  in 
which  the  traditional  relations  of  the  sexes  were  rejoiced  in 
rather  than  disturbed.  And  she  wore  a  preposterous  dress. 


68  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

There  were  two  ways  that  women  could  dress.  If  they  had 
work  to  do  they  could  dress  curtly  and  sensibly  like  men  and 
let  their  looks^  stand  or  fall  on  their  intrinsic  merits;  or  if  they 
were  among  the  women  who  are  kept  to  fortify  the  will  to  live 
in  men  who  are  spent  or  exasperated  by  conflict  with  the  world, 
the  wives  and  daughters  and  courtesans  of  the  rich,  then  they 
should  wear  soft  lustrous  dresses  that  were  good  to  look  at 
and  touch  and  as  carefully  beautiful  as  pictures.  But  this 
blue  thing  was  neither  sturdy  covering  nor  the  brilliant  fantasy 
it  meant  to  be.  It  had  the  spurious  glitter  of  an  imitation 
jewel.  He  knew  he  felt  this  irritation  about  her  partly  be- 
cause there  was  something  base  in  him,  half  innate  and  half 
the  abrasion  his  present  circumstances  had  rubbed  on  his  soul, 
which  was  willing  to  go  on  this  stupid  sexual  journey  suggested 
by  such  vain,  passive  women,  and  the  saner  part  of  him  was 
vexed  at  this  compliance ;  he  thought  he  had  a  real  case  against 
her.  She  was  one  of  those  beautiful  women  who  are  not  only 
conscious  of  their  beauty  but  have  accepted  it  as  their  voca- 
tion. She  was  ensphered  from  the  world  of  creative  effort 
in  the  establishment  of  her  own  perfection.  She  was  an  end 
in  herself  as  no  human,  save  some  old  saint  who  has  made 
a  garden  of  his  soul,  had  any  right  to  be. 

That  little  girl  Ellen  Melville  was  lovelier  stuff  because  she 
was  at  grips  with  the  world.  This  woman  had  magnificent 
smooth  wolds  of  shoulders  and  a  large  blonde  dignity;  but 
life  was  striking  sparks  of  the  flint  of  Ellen's  being.  There 
came  before  him  the  picture  of  her  as  she  had  been  that  day 
in  Princes  Street,  with  the  hairs  straggling  under  her  hat  and 
her  fierce  eyes  holding  back  the  tears,  telling  him  haughtily 
that  a  great  cause  made  one  indifferent  to  discomfort;  and 
he  nearly  laughed  aloud.  He  looked  across  the  hall  at  her 
and  just  caught  her  switching  her  gaze  from  him  to  the  plat- 
form. He  felt  a  curious  swaggering  triumph  at  the  flight  of 
her  eyes. 

But  Mrs.  Ormiston  had  begun  to  speak,  and  he,  too,  turned 
his  attention  to  the  platform.  He  liked  this  old  woman's 
invincible  quality,  the  way  she  had  turned  to  and  made  a 
battering-ram  of  her  own  meagre  middle-aged  body  to  level 
the  walls  of  authority;  and  she  reminded  him  of  his  mother. 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  69 

There  was  no  physical  likeness,  but  plainly  this  woman  also 
was  one  of  those  tragically  serious  mothers  in  whose  souls 
perpetual  concern  for  their  children  dwelt  like  a  cloud.  He 
thought  of  her  as  he  had  often  thought  of  Hs  mother,  that 
it  was  impossible  to  imagine  her  visited  by  those  morally  blank 
moods  of  purely  sensuous  perception  which  were  the  chief  joy 
he  had  found  in  life.  Such  women  never  stood  upright,  lift- 
ing their  faces  to  the  sunlight,  smiling  at  the  way  of  the  wind 
in  the  tree-tops;  they  seemed  to  be  crouched  down  with  ear 
to  earth,  listening  to  the  footsteps  of  the  events  which  were 
marching  upon  their  beloved. 

The  resemblance  went  no  further  than  this  spiritual  atti- 
tude, for  this  woman  was  second-rate  stuff.  Her  beauty  was 
somehow  shoddy,  her  purple  gown  the  kind  of  garment  that 
a  clairvoyant  might  have  worn,  her  movements  had  the  used 
quality  of  photographers'  poses.  Publicity  had  not  been  able 
to  change  the  substance  of  the  precious  metal  of  her  soul, 
but  it  had  tarnished  it  beyond  all  remedy.  She  alluded  pres- 
ently to  her  preposterously-named  daughters,  Brynhild,  Me- 
lissa and  Guendolen,  and  he  was  reminded  of  a  French  family 
of  musicians  with  whom  he  had  travelled  on  the  steamer  be- 
tween Rio  and  Sao  Paulo,  a  double-chinned  swarthy  Madame 
and  her  three  daughters,  Celine,  Roxane  and  Juliette,  who  sat 
about  on  deck  nursing  musical  instruments  tied  with  grubby 
scarlet  ribbons,  silent  and  dispirited,  as  though  they  were  so 
addicted  to  public  appearance  that  they  found  their  private 
hours  an  embarrassment.  But  he  remembered  with  a  prick 
of  compunction  that  they  had  made  excellent  music ;  and  that, 
after  all,  was  their  business  in  life.  So  with  the  Ormistons. 
In  the  pursuit  of  liberty  they  had  inadvertently  become  a 
troupe;  but  they  had  fought  like  lions.  And  they  were  giving 
the  young  that  guarantee  that  life  is  really  as  fine  as  story- 
books say,  which  can  only  be  given  by  contemporary  heroism. 
Little  Ellen  Melville,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hall,  was  lifting 
the  most  wonderful  face  all  fierce  and  glowing  with  hero- 
worship.  "That's  how  I  used  to  feel  about  Old  Man  Gfcthrie 
of  the  Gondomar  when  I  was  seventeen,"  he  thought.  "It's 
a  good  age.  .  .  ." 

When  he  was  seventeen.         .  He  was  not  at  all  sure  that 


70  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

those  three  years  he  had  spent  at  sea  were  not  the  best  time 
of  his  life.  It  came  back  to  him,  the  salt  enchantment  of  that 
time;  the  excitement  in  his  heart,  the  ironic  serenity  of  the 
surrounding  world,  on  that  dawn  when  he  stood  on  the  deck 
of  his  first  ship  as  it  sailed  out  of  the  Thames  to  the  open  sea. 
The  mouth  of  the  river  was  barred  by  a  rosy,  drowsy  sunrise ; 
the  sky  had  lost  its  stars,  and  had  blenched,  and  was  being 
flooded  by  a  brave  daylight  blue ;  the  water  was  changing  from 
a  sad  silver  width  to  a  sheet  of  white  silk,  creased  with  blue 
lines ;  the  low  hills  on  the  southern  bank  and  the  flat  spit  be- 
tween the  estuary  and  the  Medway  were  at  first  steamy  shapes 
that  might  have  drowned  seamen's  dreams  of  land,  but  they 
took  on  earthly  colours  as  he  watched;  and  to  the  north 
Kerith  Island,  that  had  been  a  blackness  running  weedy  fingers 
out  into  the  flood,  showed  its  farms  and  elms  standing  up  to 
their  middles  in  mist.  He  went  to  the  side  and  stared  at 
the  ridge  of  hills  that  lay  behind  the  island,  that  this  picture 
should  be  clear  in  his  mind  at  the  last  if  the  storms  should  take 
him.  There  were  the  four  crumbling  grey  towers  of  Roothing 
Castle;  and  eastward  there  was  Roothing  Church,  with  its 
squint  spire  and  its  sea-gnarled  yews  about  it,  and  at  its  base 
the  dazzling  white  speck  which  he  knew  to  be  his  father's 
tomb.  He  hated  that  he  should  be  able  to  see  it  even  from 
here.  All  his  life  that  mausoleum  had  enraged  him.  He 
counted  it  a  kind  of  cowardice  of  his  father  to  have  died 
before  his  son  was  a  man.  He  suspected  him  of  creeping  into 
his  coffin  as  a  refuge,  of  wearing  its  lead  as  armour,  from  fear 
of  his  son's  revenges ;  and  the  choice  of  so  public  a  sanctuary 
as  this  massive  tomb  on  the  hillside  was  a  last  insolence. 

Eastward,  a  few  fields'  length  along  the  ridge,  was  the 
belvedere  on  his  father's  estate.  He  had  not  looked  at  it 
for  years,  but  from  here  it  was  so  little  like  itself  that  he 
could  bear  to  let  his  eyes  dwell  on  it.  It  was  built  at  the  fore 
of  a  crescent-shaped  plantation  on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and  the 
dark  woods  stretched  away  on  each  side  of  the  temple  like 
great  green  wings  spread  by  a  small  white  bird.  And  eastward 
yet  a  mile  or  so,  at  the  end  of  a  line  of  salt-stunted  oaks,  was 
the  red  block  of  Yaverland's  End.  Under  that  thatch  was  his 
mother.  She  would  be  asleep  now.  Nearly  always  now  she 


c  IIAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  71 

dropped  off  to  sleep  before  dawn.  With  a  constriction  of  the 
heart  he  thought  of  her  as  she  would  be  looking  now,  lying 
very  straight  in  her  narrow  bed,  one  arm  crooked  behind  the 
head  and  the  other  rigid  by  her  side,  the  black  drift  of  her 
hair  drawn  across  her  eyes  like  a  mask  and  her  uncovered 
mouth  speaking  very  often.  Many  of  her  nights  were  spent 
in  argument  with  the  dead.  At  the  picture  he  felt  a  rush  of 
love  that  dizzied  him,  and  he  cursed  himself  for  having  left 
her,  until  the  serenity  of  the  white  waters  and  the  limpid  sky 
imposed  reason  on  his  thoughts  as  it  was  imposing  harmoni- 
ousness  on  the  cries  of  the  seagulls  and  the  shouts  of  the 
sailors.  Then  he  recognised  the  necessity  of  this  adventure. 
It  was  his  duty  to  her  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  do  great 
things.  He  had  said  so  very  definitely  to  himself,  and  had 
turned  back  to  his  work  with  a  scowl  of  resolution.  So  that 
boy,  thirteen  years  before.  .  .  . 

He  shivered  and  wished  he  had  not  thought  of  the  time 
when  he  meant  to  do  great  things,  for  this  was  one  of  the 
nights  when  he  felt  that  he  had  done  nothing  and  was  nothing. 
He  saw  his  soul  as  something  detached  from  his  body  and 
inimical  to  it,  an  enveloping  substance,  thin  as  smoke  and  acrid 
to  the  smell,  which  segregated  him  from  the  participation  in 
reality  which  he  felt  to  be  his  due,  and  he  changed  his  posi- 
tion, and  cleared  his  throat,  and  stared  hard  at  the  people 
round  him  and  at  the  woman  on  the  platform  in  hopes  that 
some  arresting  gesture  might  summon  him  from  this  shadowy 
prison.  But  the  audience  sat  still  in  a  sheeplike,  grazing  sort 
of  attention,  and  Mrs.  Ormiston  continued  to  exercise  her 
distinguished  querulousness  on  the  subject  of  male  primo- 
geniture. So  he  remained  rooted  in  this  oppressive  sense  of 
his  own  nothingness. 

"Oh,  come,  I've  had  an  hour  or  two !"  he  reassured  himself. 
There  were  those  three  days  and  nights  when  he  stood  at  the 
wheel  of  the  Father  Time,  because  the  captain  and  every  man 
who  was  wise  about  navigation  were  dying  in  their  bunks 
of  New  Guinea  fever;  days  that  came  up  from  the  seas  fresh 
as  a  girl  from  a  bathe  and  turned  to  a  torturing  dome  of  fire ; 
nights  when  he  looked  up  at  the  sky  and  could  not  tell  which 
were  the  stars  and  which  the  lights  which  trouble  the  eyes  of 


72  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

sleep-sick  men.  There  was  that  week  when  he  and  Perez  and 
the  two  French  chemists  and  the  handful  of  loyal  workmen 
held  the  Romanones  Works  against  the  strikers.  He  was  con- 
scious that  he  had  behaved  well  on  these  occasions  and  that 
they  had  been  full  of  beauty,  but  they  had  not  nourished  him. 
They  had  ended  when  they  ended.  Such  deeds  gave  a  man 
nothing  better  than  the  exultation  of  the  actor,  who  loses 
his  value  and  becomes  a  suspended  soul,  unable  to  fulfil  his 
function  when  the  curtain  falls.  "But  you  are  condemning 
the  whole  of  human  action!"  he  expostulated  with  himself. 
"Yes,  I  am  condemning  the  whole  of  human  action,"  he  replied 
tartly. 

There  remained,  of  course,  his  scientific  work.  That  was 
indubitably  good.  He  had  done  well,  considering  he  had  not 
gone  to  South  Kensington  till  he  was  twenty  and  had  broken 
the  habit  of  study  by  a  life  of  adventure,  simply  because  the 
idea  of  explosiveness  had  captured  his  imagination.  That  rust 
is  a  slow  explosion,  that  every  movement  is  the  result  of  a 
physical  explosion,  that  explosives  are  capricious  as  women 
about  the  forces  to  which  they  yield,  so  that  this  one  will  only 
ignite  with  heat  and  that  only  with  concussion — these  facts 
had  from  his  earliest  knowledge  of  them  been  gilded  with  ir- 
rational delight,  and  it  had  been  no  effort  to  him  to  work  at 
the  subject  with  an  austere  diligence  that  had  shown  itself 
worth  while  in  that  last  paper  he  had  read  at  the  Paris  Con- 
ference. That  was  a  pretty  piece  of  research.  But  now  for 
the  first  time  he  resented  his  chemistry  work  because  it  was 
of  no  service  to  his  personal  life.  Before,  it  had  always  seemed 
to  him  the  special  dignity  of  his  vocation  that  it  could  conduct 
its  researches  without  resorting  to  the  use  of  humanity  and 
that  he  could  present  his  results  unsigned  by  his  own  per- 
sonality. He  had  often  pitied  doctors,  who,  instead  of  dealing 
with  exquisitely  consistent  chemicals,  have  to  work  on  men 
and  women,  unselected  specimens  of  the  most  variable  of  all 
species,  which  was  singularly  inept  at  variating  in  the  direc- 
tion of  beauty;  and  it  seemed  miraculous  that  he  could  turn 
the  yeasty  workings  of  his  mind  into  cool,  clear  statements  of 
hitherto  unstated  truth  that  would  in  no  way  betray  to  those 
that  read  them  that  their  maker  was  lustful  and  hot-tempered 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  73 

and,  about  some  things,  melancholic.  He  had  felt  Science  to 
be  so  gloriously  above  life;  to  make  the  smallest  discovery 
was  like  hearing  the  authentic  voice  of  God  who  is  no  man 
but  a  Spirit. 

But  now  none  of  these  things  mattered.  He  was  caught  in 
the  net  of  life  and  nothing  that  was  above  it  was  of  any  use  to 
him ;  as  well  expect  a  man  who  lies  through  the  night  with  his 
foot  in  a  man-trap  to  be  comforted  by  the  beauty  of  the  stars. 
The  only  God  he  could  have  any  use  for  would  be  the  kind  the 
Salvationists  talk  about,  who  goes  about  giving  drunken  men 
an  arm  past  the  public-house  and  coming  between  the  pick- 
pocket and  Black  Maria  with  a  well-timed  text.  There  was 
nothing  in  Science  that  would  lift  him  out  of  this  hell  of  lone- 
liness, this  conviction  of  impotence,  this  shame  of  achieve- 
mentless  maturity.  He  perceived  that  he  had  really  known 
this  for  a  long  time,  and  that  it  was  the  meaning  of  the  grow- 
ing irritability  which  had  of  late  changed  his  day  in  the  labor- 
atory from  the  rapt,  swift  office  of  the  mind  it  used  to  be,  to 
an  interminable  stretch  of  drudgery  checkered  with  fits  of 
rage  at  faulty  apparatus,  neurotic  moods  when  he  felt  unable 
to  perform  fine  movements,  and  desolating  spaces  when  he 
stood  at  the  window  and  stared  at  the  high  grassy  embankment 
which  ran  round  the  hut,  designed  to  break  the  outward  force 
of  any  explosion  that  might  occur,  and  lought  grimly  over 
the  commercial  uses  that  were  to  be  made  of  his  work.  What 
was  the  use  of  sweating  his  brains  so  that  one  set  of  fools 
could  blow  another  set  of  fools  to  glory?  Oh,  this  was 
hell!  .  .  . 

The  detestable  blonde  was  now  holding  the  platform  in 
attitudes  such  as  are  ascribed  to  goddesses  by  British  sculp- 
tors, and  speaking  with  a  slow,  pure  gusto  of  the  horrors  of 
immorality.  For  a  moment  her  allusions  to  the  wrongs  of  un- 
married mothers  made  him  think  of  the  proud  but  defeated 
poise  of  his  mother's  head,  and  then  the  peculiar  calm,  gross 
qualities  of  her  phrases  came  home  to  him.  He  wondered  how 
long  she  had  been  going  on  like  this,  and  he  stared  round  to 
see  how  these  people,  who  looked  so  very  decent,  whom  it  was 
;mpossible  to  imagine  other  than  fully  dressed,  were  taking 
it.  Without  anticipation  his  eyes  fell  on  Ellen  and  found  her 


74  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

looking  very  Scotch  and  clapping  sturdily.  Of  course  it  must 
be  all  right,  since  everything  about  her  was  all  right,  but  he 
searched  this  surprising  gesture  as  though  he  were  trying  to 
read  a  signal,  till  with  a  quick  delight  he  realised  that  this  was 
just  the  final  proof  of  how  very  much  all  right  she  was.  Only 
a  girl  so  innocent  that  these  allusions  to  sex  had  called  to  her 
mind  no  physical  presentations  whatsoever  could  have  stood 
there  with  perked  head  and  made  cymbals  of  her  hands.  Evi- 
dently she  did  nothing  by  halves;  her  mind  was  white  as  her 
hair  was  red. 

He  felt  less  appalled  by  this  speech  now  that  he  saw  that  it 
was  powerless  to  wound  simplicity,  but  he  still  hated  it.  It 
was  doing  no  good,  because  it  was  a  part  of  the  evil  it  attacked ; 
for  the  spirit  that  makes  people  talk  coarsely  about  sex  is  the 
same  spirit  that  makes  men  act  coarsely  to  women.  It  was 
not  Puritanism  at  all  that  would  put  an  end  to  this  squalor 
and  cruelty,  but  sensuality.  If  you  taught  that  these  en- 
counters were  degrading,  then  inevitably  men  treated  the 
women  whom  they  encountered  as  degraded ;  but  if  you 
claimed  that  even  the  most  casual  love-making  was  beautiful, 
and  that  a  woman  who  yields  to  a  man's  entreaty  gave  him 
some  space  of  heaven,  then  you  could  insist  that  he  was  under 
an  obligation  of  gratitude  to  her  and  must  treat  her  honour- 
ably. That  would  not  only  change  the  character  of  immoral- 
ity, but  would  also  diminish  it,  for  men  have  no  taste  for  mul- 
tiplying their  responsibilities. 

Besides,  it  was  true.  These  things  were  very  good.  He 
had  half  forgotten  how  good  they  were.  The  meeting  became 
a  babble  in  his  ears,  a  transparency  of  listening  shapes  before 
his  eyes.  .  .  .  He  was  back  in  Rio;  back  in  youth.  He  was 
waiting  with  a  fever  in  his  blood  at  that  dinner  at  old  Hermes 
Pessoa's  preposterous  house,  that  was  built  like — so  far  as  it 
was  like  anything  else  on  earth — the  Villa  d'Este  mingled  with 
the  Alhambra.  The  dinner,  Considered  as  a  matter  of  food, 
had  come  to  an  end,  and  for  some  little  time  had  been  a  matter 
of  drink;  most  of  the  guests  had  gathered  in  a  circle  at  the 
head  of  the  hall  round  fat  old  Pessoa,  who  had  sent  a  servant 
upstairs  for  a  pair  of  tartan  socks  so  that  he  could  dance  the 
Highland  fling.  He  had  got  up  and  strolled  to  the  other  end 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  75 

of  the  room,  where  the  great  black  onyx  fireplace  climbed  out 
of  the  light  into  the  layer  of  gloom  which  lay  beneath  the 
ceiling  that  here  and  there  dripped  stalactites  of  ornament 
down  into  the  brightness.  Against  the  wall  on  each  side  of 
the  fireplace  there  stood  six  great  chairs  of  cypress  wood, 
padded  with  red  Spanish  leather  that  smelt  sweetly  and  because 
of  its  great  age  was  giving  off  a  soft  red  dust.  These  chairs 
pleased  him ;  they  were  the  only  old  things  in  this  mad  new 
house,  in  this  mad  new  society.  He  had  pulled  one  out  and 
lain  back,  feeling  rather  ill,  because  he  had  eaten  nothing  and 
his  heart  was  beating  violently.  He  hated  being  there,  but 
he  had  to  make  sure.  Much  rather  would  he  have  been  out 
in  the  gardens,  standing  beside  one  of  those  magnolias,  watch- 
ing the  stars  travel  across  the  bay.  "Then  marriage  is  right," 
he  said  to  himself.  "Where  there  is  real  love  one  wants  to 
go  to  church  first." 

Others  who  had  wearied  of  the  party  drifted  down  to  this 
recess  of  peace.  An  elderly  Frenchman  with  a  pointed  black 
beard,  and  a  slim,  fair  English  boy  with  tears  on  his  long  eye- 
lashes, sat  themselves  down  in  two  of  these  great  chairs,  with 
a  bottle  of  wine  at  their  feet  and  one  glass,  from  which 
they  drank  alternately  with  an  effect  of  exchanging  vows, 
while  the  boy  whimpered  some  confession,  sobbing  that  it 
would  all  never  have  happened  if  he  had  still  been  with  Father 
Errington  of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  Liverpool,  and  the  older  man 
repeated  paternally,  mystically,  and  yet  with  a  purring  satis- 
faction, "Little  one,  do  not  grieve.  It  is  always  thus  when 
one  forgets  the  Church." 

There  came  later  another  Frenchman,  a  fat  and  very  drunken 
banker,  who  sat  down  at  his  right  and  complained  from  time 
to  time  of  the  lack  of  elegance  in  this  debauchery.  He  wished 
that  these  people  had  left  him  alone,  and  stared  at  the  wall  in 
front  of  him,  where  curtains  of  crimson  brocade  and  gold 
galoon  hung  undrawn  between  the  lustred  tiles  and  the  high 
windows,  black  with  the  outer  night  but  streaked  and  oiled 
with  reflections  of  the  inner  feast.  Opposite  there  hung  a 
Bouguereau,  which  irritated  him — nymphs  ought  not  to  look 
as  if  they  had  come  newly  unguented  from  a  cabinet  de  toilette. 
Below  it  stood  an  immense  Cloisonne  vase,  about  the  neck  of 


76  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

which  was  tied  a  scarlet  silk  stocking.  He  remembered  hav- 
ing seen  it  there  on  his  last  visit  six  months  before.  She  must 
have  been  an  exceptionally  careless  lady.  Out  here  there  were 
many  ladies  who  were  careless  of  their  honour,  but  most  of 
them  were  careful  enough  about  tangible  possessions  like  silk 
stockings.  A  fresh  outburst  in  the  babel  at  the  other  end  of 
the  room  did  not  make  him  turn  round,  though  the  French 
banker  had  cried  in  an  ecstasy,  "Tiens!  c'est  atroce!"  and  had 
bounded  up  the  hall.  He  sat  on,  hating  this  ugly  place  of  his 
delay,  while  the  Frenchman  and  the  boy  kept  up  an  insincere, 
voluptuous  whisper  about  God  and  the  comfort  of  the 
Mass.  .  .  . 

At  last  he  rose  to  his  feet.  It  was  a  quarter  to  twelve,  and 
time  for  him  to  go.  He  went  up  the  hall,  treading  on  lobster 
claws  and  someone's  wig,  and  looking  about  him  for  a  certain 
person.  He  could  not  see  him  among  the  group  of  revellers 
that  stood  in  the  space  before  the  large  folding-doors,  and  for 
a  minute  a  hand  closed  over  his  heart  as  he  feared  that  for 
once  the  person  whom  he  sought  had  gone  home  before  morn- 
ing. But  presently  he  saw  a  long  chair  by  the  wall,  and  on 
its  cushions  a  blotched  face  and  a  gross,  full  body.  He  bent 
over  the  chair  and  whispered,  "De  Rojas,  de  Rojas !"  But 
the  fat  man  slept.  Hatred  gushed  up  in  him,  and  a  joy  that 
the  night  was  secure,  and  he  passed  on  to  the  folding-doors. 
But  from  the  little  group  that  was  gathered  round  the  table, 
which  before  the  dinner  had  supported  the  Winged  Victory 
that  now  lay  spread-eagled  on  the  floor,  there  stepped  Pessoa. 
He  bade  him  good-night  and  thanked  him  for  a  riotous  eve- 
ning, but  perceived  that  Pessoa  was  waving  a  cocked  revolver 
at  him  and  saying  something  about  Leonore.  What  could  he 
be  saying?  It  appeared  incredible,  even  to-night,  that  he 
should  really  be  saying  that  every  departing  guest  must  kiss 
Leonore's  back  and  swear  that  it  was  the  most  beautiful  back 
in  Brazil. 

He  looked  along  the  avenue  of  revellers  that  had  turned 
grinning  to  see  how  his  English  stiffness  would  meet  the  oc- 
casion, and  saw  poor  Leonore.  She  was  sitting  on  the  table, 
one  hand  holding  her  pink  wrapper  to  her  breast  and  the 
other  patting  back  a  yawn,  and  her  nightdress  was  pulled 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  77 

down  to  her  waist  so  that  her  back  was  bare.  Such  a  broad, 
honest  back  it  was,  for  she  was  the  thick  type  of  French- 
woman, and  might  have  stood  as  a  model  for  Millet's 
"Angelus."  She  looked  over  her  shoulder  and  smiled  at  him 
benignantly,  perplexedly,  and  he  saw  that  she  was  unhappy. 
They  had  fetched  her  down  from  her  warm  bed,  whither 
doubtless  she  had  gone  with  hopes  of  having  a  good  night's 
rest  for  once,  since  Hermes  was  giving  a  stag-dinner.  They 
had  not  even  given  her  time  to  wipe  off  all  the  cold  cream, 
some  of  which  lay  in  an  ooze  round  her  jaw  and  temples,  or 
to  take  the  curl-papers  out  of  her  hair,  which  still  sported 
some  white  snippets  of  the  Jornal  de  Commercio.  She  bore 
no  malice,  the  good  soul  was  saying  to  herself,  but  once  a 
woman  is  in  her  bed  she  likes  to  stay  there:  still,  men  are 
men,  and  mad,  so  what  can  one  expect? 

He  would  not  treat  her  lightly,  nor  spoil  his  sense  of  dedica- 
tion to  one  woman.  He  flicked  the  revolver  out  of  Pessoa's 
hand  and  flung  it  through  the  nearest  window.  The  thick 
glass  took  a  little  time  to  fall. 

"My  friends  will  wait  on  you  in  the  morning,"  Pessoa  had 
spouted,  and  he  had  said  the  appropriate  courteous  things,  and 
gone  up  to  Leonore,  and  kissed  her  hand  and  said  something 
chaffing  in  her  ear,  at  which  she  smiled  sleepily,  and  said  in 
English,  "Go  on,  you  bad  man!"  She  spoke  so  slowly  and 
so  meaninglessly,  as  stupid  people  do  when  they  speak  a  for- 
eign tongue,  that  the  words  seemed  to  be  uttered  by  some 
lonely  ghost  that  had  found  a  lodging  in  her  broad  mouth. 
Then  the  men  fell  back  to  let  him  go  out  through  the  folding- 
doors,  and  he  went  out  into  the  Moorish  arches  of  the  entrance- 
hall,  where  Indian  flunkeys  in  purple  livery  gave  him  his  coat 
and  hat,  and  he  set  his  back  to  this  queer  mass  of  cupolas 
and  towers,  that  radiated  from  its  uncurtained  windows  rays 
of  light  which  were  pollutions  of  the  moonlight.  He  thought 
of  that  blotched  face,  that  gross,  full  body.  ...  It  was  a  night 
of  strong  moonlight.  He  was  walking  along  a  dazzling  white 
causeway  edged,  where  the  wall  cast  its  shadow,  with  a  ribbon 
of  blackness.  Palms  stood  up  glittering,  touched  by  the  moon 
to  something  madder  than  their  daylight  fantasy  of  form.  The 
aluminium-painted  railings  in  front  of  de  Rojas'  villa  gleamed 


78  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

like  the  spears  of  heroes.  He  stared  between  them  at  the  red 
fagade;  if  she  was  a  coward  she  would  still  be  somewhere 
in  there.  The  thought  struck  him  with  terror.  If  she  were 
not  waiting  for  him  the  moonlight  would  shatter  and  turn 
to  darkness,  the  violence  of  his  heart-beat  turn  to  stillness. 

Now  he  had  come  to  the  Villa  Miraflores.  This  was  his 
house.  Yet  he  entered  the  gate  like  a  thief,  and  crept  along 
the  shadow  of  the  wall  that  enclosed  his  own  gardens.  The 
magnolias  stood  blazing  white  on  the  lawns,  the  stiff  scarlet 
poinsettias  twitched  resentfully  under  the  poising  fireflies' 
weight,  and  from  the  dark  geraniums  scent  rose  like  a  smoke. 
He  would  have  liked  to  go  to  her  with  an  armful  of  flowers, 
but  he  did  not  dare  to  go  out  into  the  light.  He  passed  the 
door  that  led  from  his  to  de  Rojas'  garden,  which  had  been 
made  when  a  father  and  son  had  been  tenants  of  the  two 
houses,  and  which  had  never  been  blocked  up  because  de 
Rojas  and  he  were  such  good  neighbours.  If  it  had  not  been 
unlocked  to-night,  if  the  marble  summerhouse  were  empty 
.  .  .  He  stood  in  the  pillared  portico  and  did  not  dare  go  in. 
He  thought  of  the  temple,  not  so  very  much  unlike  this,  on  a 
far-off  Essex  hillside,  where  his  mother  used  to  meet  his 
father ;  and  somehow  this  made  him  feel  that  if  Mariquita  had 
failed  him  it  would  be  a  bitter  shame  and  dishonour  to  him. 
Very  slowly,  rehearsing  cruel  things  that  he  would  say  to  her 
to-morrow,  he  opened  the  door  and  let  the  moonbeams  search 
the  summerhouse.  It  showed  a  huddled  figure  that  wailed  a 
little  as  it  saw  the  light.  He  shut  the  door  and  moved  into 
the  darkness,  taking  his  woman  in  his  arms,  finding  her 
lips.  .  .  . 

It  had  all  gone.  He  could  remember  nothing  of  it.  He 
could  remember  nothing  of  the  joy  that  had  thralled  him  for 
two  years,  that  by  its  ending  had  desolated  him  for  two  more 
and  alienated  him  from  women.  He  knew  as  a  matter  of 
historical  fact  that  he  had  been  her  lover,  but  it  meant  no 
more  to  him  than  his  knowledge  that  Antony  had  once  loved 
Cleopatra  and  Nelson  Lady  Hamilton;  of  the  quality  of  her 
kisses,  the  magic  that  must  have  filled  these  hours,  he  could 
recollect  nothing.  Perhaps  it  was  not  fair  to  blame  her  for 
that.  Perhaps  it  was  not  her  fault  but  the  fault  of  Nature, 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  79 

who  is  so  determined  that  men  shall  go  on  love-making  that  she 
makes  the  delights  of  love  the  least  memorable  of  all.  But 
it  was  her  fault  that  she  had  given  him  nothing  spiritual  to 
remember.  When  he  came  to  think  of  it,  she  had  hardly  ever 
said  anything  that  one  could  carry  away  with  one.  She  was 
one  of  those  women  who  moan  a  lot,  and  one  cannot  get  any 
solid  satisfaction  out  of  repeating  a  moan  to  oneself.  He 
grinned  as  he  thought  of  the  alarm  of  his  laboratory  boy  if 
he  should  ever  try  in  some  cheerless  stretch  of  his  work  to 
remind  himself  of  Mariquita  by  saying  over  to  himself  her 
characteristic  moan.  Nothing  she  had  ever  said  or  done  when 
they  were  lovers  was  half  so  real  to  him  as  the  tears  she 
shed  when  she  cast  him  off  because  the  priest  had  told  her  that 
she  must;  when  she  broke  the  tie  between  them  with  a  blank 
dismissal  which,  if  it  had  been  given  by  a  man  to  a  woman, 
these  Suffragettes  would  have  called  a  Vile  betrayal. 

He  could  remember  well  enough  his  rage  when  he  took  her 
to  him  in  that  last  embrace  and  she  would  not  give  him  both 
her  hands,  because  in  one  she  held  the  ebony  cross  of  her 
rosary,  to  make  her  strong  to  do  this  unnatural  thing.  Well, 
perhaps  it  was  natural  enough  that  that  hour  should  seem 
most  real  to  him,  for  it  was  then  that  he  had  found  out  their 
real  relationship.  To  him  it  had  seemed  as  if  they  were  two 
children  wandering  in  the  unfriendly  desert  that  is  life,  com- 
forting each  other  with  kisses,  finding  in  their  love  a  refuge 
from  coldness  and  unkindness.  But  in  her  fear  he  perceived 
that  she  had  never  been  his  comrade.  She  had  thought  of  him 
as  an  external  power,  like  the  Church,  who  told  her  to  do 
things,  and  in  the  end  the  choice  had  been  for  her  not  between 
a  dear  and  pitied  lover  and  a  creed,  but  between  two  tyrants ; 
and  since  one  tyrant  threatened  damnation  while  the  other 
only  promised  love,  a  sensible  woman  knew  which  to  choose. 
All  he  had  thought  of  her  had  been  an  illusion.  The  years 
he  had  given  to  his  love  for  her  were  as  wasted  as  if  he  had 
spent  them  in  drunkenness  or  in  prison. 

Oh,  women  were  the  devil !  All  except  his  mother.  They 
were  the  clumsiest  of  biological  devices,  and  as  they  handed 
on  life  they  spoiled  it.  They  stood  at  the  edge  of  the  primeval 
swamps  and  called  the  men  down  from  the  highlands  of  civil- 


80  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

isation  and  certain  cells  determined  upon  immortality  betrayed 
their  victims  to  them.  They  served  the  seed  of  life,  but  to  all 
the  divine  accretions  that  had  gathered  round  it,  the  courage 
that  adventures,  the  intellect  that  creates,  the  soul  that  ques- 
tions how  it  came,  they  were  hostile.  They  hated  the  com- 
plicated brains  that  men  wear  in  their  heads  as  men  hated  the 
complicated  hats  that  women  wear  on  their  heads ;  they  hated 
men  to  look  at  the  stars  because  they  are  sexless;  they  hated 
men  who  loved  them  passionately  because  such  love  was 
tainted  with  the  romantic  and  imaginative  quality  that  spurs 
them  to  the  folly  of  science  and  art  and  exploration.  And  yet 
surely  there  were  other  women.  Surely  there  was  a  woman 
somewhere  who,  if  one  loved  her,  would  prove  not  a  mere 
possession  who  would  either  bore  one  or  go  and  get  lost  just 
when  one  had  grown  accustomed  to  it,  but  would  be  an  endless 
research.  A  woman  who  would  not  be  a  mere  film  of  graceful 
submissiveness  but  real  as  a  chemical  substance,  so  that  one 
could  observe  her  reactions  and  find  out  her  properties;  and 
like  a  chemical  substance,  irreducible  to  final  terms,  so  that 
one  never  came  to  an  end.  A  woman  who  would  get  excited 
about  life  as  men  do  and  could  laugh  and  cheer.  A  woman 
whose  beauty  would  be  forever  significant  with  speculation. 
He  perceived  with  a  shock  that  he  was  thinking  of  this  woman 
not  as  one  thinks  of  a  hypothetical  person,  but  with«the  glow- 
ing satisfaction  which  one  feels  in  recounting  the  charms  of  a 
new  friend.  He  was  thinking  of  some  real  person.  It  was 
someone  he  had  met  quite  lately,  someone  with  red  hair.  He 
was  thinking  of  that  little  Ellen  Melville. 

He  looked  across  the  hall  at  her.    Their  eyes  met. 


IV 

When  he  went  over  to  her  side  at  the  end  of  the  meeting 
she  glowered  at  him  and  said,  "Oh,  it's  you!"  as  if  it  was 
the  first  time  she  had  set  eyes  upon  him  that  evening;  but  he 
knew  that  that  was  just  because  she  was  shy,  and  he  shook 
hands  rather  slowly  and  looked  her  full  in  the  face  as  he  said 
he  had  liked  the  speeches  so  that  she  might  see  she  couldn't 
come  it  over  him.  And  he  asked  if  he  might  see  her  home. 


CHAPTER    II 


THE  JUDGE  81 


She  swallowed,  and  pushed  up  her  chin,  as  if  trying  to  rise 
to  some  tremendous  occasion,  and  then  pulled  herself  together, 
and  with  an  air  of  having  found  a  loophole  of  escape,  enquired, 
"But  where  are  you  stopping?"  and  when  he  made  answer 
that  he  was  staying  at  the  Caledonian  Hotel,  she  exclaimed 
in  a  tone  of  relief,  "Ah,  but  I  live  at  Hume  Park  Square  out 
by  the  Meadows!" 

"I  want  to  see  you  home,"  he  said  inflexibly. 

"Oh,  if  you  want  the  walk!"  she  answered  resignedly. 
"Though  you've  a  queer  taste  in  walks,  for  the  streets  are 
terrible  underfoot.  But  I  suppose  you're  shut  up  all  day  at 
your  work.  You'll  just  have  to  sit  down  and  wait  till  I've 
checked  the  literature  and  handed  in  the  takings.  I  doubt 
yon  stout  body  in  plum-coloured  velveteen  who  bought  R.  J. 
Campbell  on  the  Social  Evil  with  such  an  air  of  condescension 
has  paid  me  with  a  bad  threepenny-bit.  Aren't  folks  the 
limit?"  She  was  so  full  of  bitterness  against  the  fraudulent 
body  in  plum-coloured  velveteen  that  she  forgot  her  shyness 
and  looked  into  his  eyes  to  appeal  for  sympathy.  "Ah,  well !" 
she  said,  stiffening  again,  "I'll  be  back  in  a  minute." 

He  leaned  against  a  pillar  and  waited.  The  hall  became 
empty,  became  melancholy;  mysteriously  and  insultingly  its 
emptiness  seemed  to  summarise  the  proceedings  that  had  just 
ended.  It  was  as  if  the  place  were  waiting  till  he  and  the  few 
darkly  dressed  women  who  still  stood  about  chewing  the 
speeches  were  gone,  and  would  then  enact  a  satire  on  the 
evening;  the  rows  of  seats  which  turned  their  polished  brown 
surfaces  towards  the  platform  with  an  effect  of  mock  atten- 
tiveness  would  jeeringly  imitate  the  audience,  the  chairs  that 
had  been  left  higgledy-piggledy  on  the  platform  would  parody 
the  speakers.  And  doubtless,  if  there  is  a  beneficent  Provi- 
dence that  really  picks  the  world  over  for  opportunities  of 
kindliness,  halls  which  are  habitually  let  out  for  political  meet- 
ings are  allowed  means  of  relieving  their  feelings  which  are 
forbidden  to  other  collections  of  bricks  and  mortar.  But  he 
mustn't  say  that  to  Ellen.  To  her  political  meetings  were 
plainly  sacred  rituals,  and  in  any  case^  he  was  not  sure  whether 
she  laughed  at  things. 

She  called  to  him  from  the  doorway,  "I'm  through,  Mr. 


82  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

Yaverland!"  She  was  wearing  a  tam-o'-shanter  and  a  mack- 
intosh, which  she  buttoned  right  up  to  her  chin,  and  she  looked 
just  a  brown  pipe  with  a  black  knob  at  the  top,  a  mere  piece 
of  plumbing.  He  thought  it  very  probable  that  never  before 
in  the  history  of  the  human  race  had  a  beautiful  girl  dressed 
herself  so  unbecomingly.  But  that  she  had  done  so  seemed  so 
peculiarly  and  deliciously  amusing  that  as  he  walked  by  her 
side  he  could  hardly  keep  from  looking  at  her  smilingly  in  a 
way  that  would  have  puzzled  and  annoyed  her.  And  outside 
the  hall,  when  they  found  that  the  mist,  like  a  sour  man  who 
will  not  give, way  to  his  temper  but  keeps  on  dropping  dis- 
agreeable remarks,  was  letting  down  just  enough  of  itself  to 
soak  Edinburgh  without  giving  it  the  slightest  hope  that  it 
would  rain  itself  out  by  the  morning,  he  caught  again  this 
queer  flavour  of  her  that  in  its  sharpness  and  its  freshness 
reminded  him  of  the  taste  of  fresh  celery.  He  asked  .her  if 
she  hadn't  an  umbrella,  and  she  replied,  "I've  no  use  for  um- 
brellas; I  like  the  feel  of  the  rain  on  my  face,  and  I  see  no 
sense  in  paying  three-and-eleven  for  avoiding  a  positive 
pleasure." 

By  that  time  Ellen  was  almost  sure  that  he  was  smiling  to 
himself  in  the  darkness,  and  was  miserable.  It  was  a  silly, 
homely  thing  to  have  said.  "Ah,  what  for  can  he  be  wanting 
to  see  me  home  ?"  she  thought  helplessly.  "He  is  so  wonderful. 
But  then,  so  am  I !  So  am  I !"  And  as  they  went  through  the 
dark  tangle  of  small  streets  she  turned  loose  on  him  her  enthu- 
siasm for  the  meeting,  so  that  he  might  see  that  women  also 
have  their  serious  splendours.  Hadn't  it  been  a  magnificent 
meeting?  Wasn't  Mrs.  Ormiston  a  grand  speaker?  Could 
he  possibly,  if  he  cared  anything  for  honesty,  affirm  that  he 
had  ever  heard  a  man  speaker  who  came  within  a  hundred 
miles  of  her?  And  wasn't  Mrs.  Mark  Lyle  beautiful,  and 
didn't  she  remind  him  of  the  early  Christian  martyrs?  Didn't 
he  think  the  women  who  were  forcibly  fed  were  heroines,  and 
didn't  he  think  the  Liberal  Governments  were  the  most  abomi- 
nable bloodstained  tyrants  of  our  times  ?  "Though,  mind  you, 
I'd  be  with  the  Liberal  Party  myself  if  they'd  only  give  us  the 
vote."  It  was  rather  like  going  for  a  walk  with  a  puppy  bark- 
ing at  one's  heels,  but  he  liked  it.  Through  her  talk  he  noticed 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  83 

little  things  about  her.  She  had  had  very  little  to  do  with 
men,  perhaps  she  had  never  walked  with  a  man  before,  for  she 
did  not  naturally  take  the  wall  when  they  crossed  the  road. 
Her  voice  was  soft  and  seemed  to  cling  to  her  lips,  as  red- 
haired  people's  voices  often  do.  Her  heels  did  not  click  on 
the  pavements;  she  walked  noiselessly,  as  though  she  trod  on 
grass. 

Suddenly  she  clapped  her  bare  hands.  "Ah,  if  you're  a  sym- 
pathiser you  must  join  the  Men's  League  for  Women's  Suf- 
frage. You  will?  Oh,  that's  fine!  I've  never  brought  in  a 
member  yet.  .  .  ."  She  paused,  furious  with  herself,  for  she 
was  so  very  young  that  she  hated  ever  to  own  that  she  was 
doing  anything  for  the  first  time.  It  was  her  aim  to  appear 
infinitely  experienced.  Usually,  she  thought,  she  succeeded. 

To  end  the  silence,  so  that  she  might  say  something  to  which 
he  could  listen,  he  said,  "I  was  converted  long  before  to-night, 
you  know.  My  mother's  keen  on  the  movement." 

"Is  she?"  She  searched  her  memory.  "Yet  I  don't  know 
the  name.  Does  she  speak,  or  organise?" 

"Oh,  she  doesn't  do  anything  in  public.  She  lives  very 
quietly  in  a  little  Essex  village,"  he  answered,  speaking  with 
an  involuntary  gravity,  an  effect  of  referring  to  pain,  that 
made  her  wonder  if  his  mother  was  an  invalid.  She  hoped  it 
was  not  so,  for  if  Mrs.  Yaverland  was  anything  like  her  son  it 
was  terrible  to  think  of  her  lying  in  the  stagnant  air  of  ill- 
health  among  feeding-cups  and  medicine  bottles  and  weak- 
tasting  foods.  The  lot  of  the  sick  and  the  old,  whom  she  con- 
ceived as  exceptional  people  specially  scourged,  drew  tears 
from  her  in  the  darkness,  and  she  looked  across  the  road  at 
the  tall  wards  which  the  infirmary  thrust  out  like  piers  from 
its  main  corridor.  "Ah,  the  poor  souls  in  there !"  she  breathed, 
looking  up  at  the  rows  of  windows  which  disclosed  the  dread- 
ful pale  wavering  light  that  lives  in  sick-rooms.  "It  makes 
you  feel  guilty,  being  happy  when  those  poor  souls  are  lying 
there  in  pain."  Yaverland  did  not  seek  to  find  out  why  she 
had  said  it,  any  more  than  he  asked  himself  how  this  night's 
knowledge  of  her  was  to  be  continued,  or  what  she  meant  the 
end  of  it  to  be,  though  he  was  aware  that  those  questions 
existed.  He  simply  noted  that  she  was  being  happy.  Yes, 


84  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

they  were  curiously  happy  for  two  people  who  hardly  knew 
each  other,  going  home  in  the  rain. 

They  were  passing  down  the  Meadow  Walk  now,  between 
trees  that  were  like  shapes  drawn  on  blotting-paper  and  lamps 
that  had  the  smallest  scope.  "Edinburgh's  a  fine  place,"  he 
said.  "It  can  handle  even  an  asphalt  track  with  dignity." 

"Oh,  a  fine  place,"  she  answered  pettishly,  "if  you  could 
get  away  from  it."  He  felt  faintly  hostile  to  her  adventurous- 
ness.  Why  should  a  woman  want  to  go  wandering  about  the 
world  ? 

From  a  dream  of  foreign  countries  she  asked  suddenly, 
"How  long  were  you  a  sailor?" 

"Three  years.  From  the  time  I  was  seventeen  till  I  was 
twenty." 

Then  it  struck  him :  "How  did  you  know  I'd  been  a  sailor  ?" 

"I  just  knew,"  she  said,  with  something  of  a  sibylline  air. 
Evidently  he  was  thinking  how  clever  it  was  of  her  to  have 
guessed  it,  and  indeed  she  thought  it  was  a  remarkable  example 
of  her  instinctive  understanding  of  men.  And  Yaverland,  on 
his  side,  was  letting  his  mind  travel  down  a  channel  of  feeling 
which  he  knew  to  be  silly  and  sentimental,  like  a  man  who 
drinks  yet  another  glass  of  wine  though  he  knows  it  will  make 
his  head  swim,  and  was  wondering  if  this  clairvoyance  meant 
that  there  was  a  mystic  tie  between  them.  But  it  soon  flashed 
over  Ellen's  mind  that  the  reason  why  she  thought  that  he 
had  been  a  sailor  was  that  he  had  looked  like  one  when  he 
came  into  the  hall  in  his  raindashed  oilskins.  She  wondered  if 
she  ought  to  tell  him  so.  An  unhappy  silence  fell  upon  her, 
which  he  did  not  notice  because  he  was  thinking  how  strange 
it  was  that  even  in  this  black  lane,  between  blank  walls  through 
which  they  were  passing,  when  he  could  not  see  her,  when  she 
was  not  saying  anything,  when  he  could  get  no  personal  in- 
timation of  her  at  all  except  that  softness  of  tread,  it  was 
pleasant  to  be  with  her.  But  he  began  to  feel  anxiety  because 
of  the  squalor  of  the  district.  This  must  be  a  mews,  for  there 
vrere  sodden  shreds  of  straw  on  the  cobblestones,  and  surely 
that  was  the  thud  of  sleeping  horses'  hooves  that  sounded  like 
the  blows  of  soft  hammers  on  soft  anvils  behind  the  high 
wooden  doors.  If  she  lived  near  here  she  must  be  very  poor. 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  85 

But  without  embarrassment  she  turned  to  him  in  the  shadow 
of  a  brick  wall  surmounted  by  broken  hoarding  and  pointed 
down  a  paved  entry  to  a  dark  archway  pierced  in  what  seemed, 
by  the  light  that  shone  from  a  candle  stuck  in  a  bottle  at  an 
uncurtained  window,  to  be  a  very  mean  little  house.  "The 
Square's  through  here,"  she  said.  "Come  away  in  and  I'll 
find  you  a  membership  form  for  the  Men's  League.  .  .  ." 

Beyond  the  archway  lay  the  queerest  place.  It  was  a  little 
box-like  square,  hardly  forty  paces  across,  on  three  sides  of 
which  small  squat  houses  sat  closely  with  a  quarrelling  air, 
as  if  each  had  to  broaden  its  shoulders  and  press  out  its  elbows 
for  fear  of  being  squeezed  out  by  its  neighbours  and  knocked 
backwards  into  the  mews.  They  sent  out  in  front  of  them  the 
slimmest  slices  of  garden  which  left  room  for  nothing  but  a 
paved  walk  from  the  entry  and  a  fenced  bed  in  the  middle, 
where  a  lamp-post  stood  among  some  leggy  laurels,  which  the 
rain  was  shaking  as  a  terrier  shakes  a  rat.  Huddled  houses 
and  winking  lamp  and  agued  bushes,  all  seemed  alive  and 
second  cousins  to  the  goblins.  On  the  fourth  side  were  rail- 
ings that  evidently  gave  upon  some  sort  of  public  park,  for 
beyond  them  very  tall  trees  which  had  not  been  stunted  by 
garden  soil  sent  up  interminable  stains  on  the  white  darkness, 
and  beneath  their  drippings  paced  a  policeman,  a  black  figure 
walking  with  that  appearance  of  moping  stoicism  that  police- 
men wear  at  night.  He,  too,  participated  in  the  fantasy  of  the 
place,  for  it  seemed  possible  that  he  had  never  arrested  any- 
body and  never  would ;  that  his  sole  business  was  to  keep  away 
bad  dreams  from  the  little  people  who  were  sleeping  in  these 
little  houses.  They  were  probably  poor  little  people,  for  pov- 
erty keeps  early  hours,  and  in  all  the  square  there  was  but  one 
lighted  window.  And  that  he  perceived,  as  he  got  his  bear- 
ings, was  in  the  house  to  which  Ellen  was  leading  him  down 
the  narrowest  garden  he  had  ever  seen,  a  mere  cheese  straw  of 
grass  and  gravel.  It  was  a  corner  house,  and  of  all  the  houses 
in  the  square  it  looked  the  most  put  upon,  the  most  relentlessly 
squeezed  by  its  neighbours;  yet  Ellen  opened  the  door  and 
invited  him  in  with  something  of  an  air. 

"It's  very  late,"  he  objected,  but  she  had  cried  into  the 
darkness,  "Mother,  I've  brought  a  visitor !"  and  an  inner  door 


86  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

opened  and  let  out  light,  and  a  voice  that  was  as  if  dusk  had 
fallen  on  Ellen's  voice  said,  "What's  that  you  say,  Ellen?" 

"I've  brought  a  visitor,  mother,"  she  repeated.  "Go  on 
in;  I'll  not  be  a  minute  finding  the  form.  .  .  .  Mother,  this 
is  Mr.  Yaverland,  the  client  from  Rio.  He  says  he'll  join  the 
Men's  League  and  I'm  just  going  to  find  him  a  membership 
form." 

She  went  to  a  desk  in  the  corner  of  the  room  and  dashed  it 
open,  and  fell  to  rummaging  in  a  pile  of  papers  with  such  noisy 
haste  that  he  knew  she  was  afraid  she  ought  not  to  have  asked 
him  in  and  was  trying  to  carry  it  off  under  a  pretence  of 
urgency;  and  he  found  himself  facing  a  little  woman  who 
wore  a  shawl  in  the  low-spirited  Scotch  way,  as  if  it  were  a 
badge  of  despondency,  and  who  was  saying,  "Good  evening, 
Mr.  Yaverland.  Will  you  not  sit  down  ?  I'm  ashamed  the  hall 
gas  wasn't  lit."  A  very  poor  little  woman,  this  mother  of 
Ellen's.  The  hand  that  shook  his  was  so  very  rough,  and  at 
the  neck  of  her  stuff  gown  she  wore  a  large  round  onyx  brooch, 
a  piece  of  such  ugly  jewellery  as  is  treasured  by  the  poor,  and 
the  sum  of  her  tentative  expressions  was  surely  that  someone 
had  rudely  taken  something  from  her  and  she  was  too  gentle- 
spirited  to  make  complaint.  She  was  like  some  brown  bird 
that  had  not  migrated  at  the  right  season  of  the  year,  and  had 
been  surprised  as  well  as  draggled  by  the  winter,  chirping 
sweetly  and  sadly  on  a  bare  bough  that  she  could  not  have 
believed  such  things  of  the  weather.  Yet  once  she  must  have 
been  like  Ellen ;  her  hair  was  the  ashes  of  such  a  fire  as  burned 
over  Ellen's  brows,  and  she  had  Ellen's  short  upper  lip,  though 
of  course  she  had  never  been  fierce  nor  a  swift  runner,  and 
no  present  eye  could  guess  if  she  had  ever  been  a  focus  of 
romantic  love.  The  aged  are  terrible — mere  heaps  of  cinders 
on  the  grass  from  which  none  can  tell  how  tall  the  flames  once 
were  or  what  company  gathered  round  them. 

She  struck  him  as  being  very  old  to  be  Ellen's  mother,  for 
when  he  had  been  seventeen  his  mother  had  still  been  a  creature 
of  brilliant  eyes  and  triumphant  moments,  but  perhaps  it  was 
poverty  that  had  made  her  so  dusty  and  so  meagre.  "Yes, 
they  are  very  poor,"  he  groaned  to  himself.  The  room  was  so 
low,  the  fireplace  so  small  a  hutch  of  cast-iron,  the  wallpaper 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  87 

so  yellow  and  so  magnified  a  confusion  of  roses,  and  so  un- 
suggestive  of  summer;  the  fatigued  brown  surface  of  the 
leather  upholstery  was  coming  away  in  strips  like  curl-papers  ; 
there  were  big  steel  engravings  of  Highland  cattle  enjoying 
domestic  life  under  adverse  climatic  conditions,  and  Queen 
Victoria  giving  religion  a  leg  up  by  signing  things  in  the  pres- 
ence of  bishops  and  handing  niggers  Bibles — engravings  which 
they  obviously  didn't  like,  since  here  and  there  were  little 
home-made  pictures  made  out  of  quite  good  plates  torn  from 
art  magazines,  but  which  they  had  kept  because  no  second- 
hand dealers  would  give  any  money  for  them,  and  the  walls 
had  to  be  covered  somehow.  And  there  was  nothing  pretty 
anywhere. 

The  little  brown  bird  of  a  woman  was  asking  in  a  kind, 
interested  way  if  he  were  a  stranger  to  Edinburgh,  and  he 
was  telling  her  how  long  he  had  been  in  Broxburn  and  what 
he  did  there,  and  when  he  mentioned  cordite  she  made  the 
clucking,  concerned  noise  that  elderly  ladies  always  made  when 
they  heard  that  his  work  lay  among  high  explosives.  And 
Ellen's  rootings  in  the  untidy  desk  culminated  in  a  sudden 
sweep  of  mixed  paper  stuff  on  to  the  floor,  at  which  Mrs. 
Melville  remonstrated,  "Ellen,  it  beats  me  how  you  can  be  so 
neat  with  your  work  and  such  a  bad,  untidy  girl  about  the 
house !"  and  Ellen  exclaimed,  "Och,  drat  the  thing,  it  must  be 
upstairs !"  and  ran  out  of  the  room  with  her  face  turned  away 
from  them. 

They  heard  a  clatter  on  the  staircase,  followed  by  violent 
noises  overhead  as  if  a  chest  was  being  dashed  open  and  the 
contents  flung  on  the  floor.  "Dear,  dear!"  ejaculated  Mrs. 
Melville  adoringly.  She  began  to  look  him  over  with  a  ma- 
ternal eye.  "For  all  you've  been  six  months  in  the  North, 
you've  not  lost  your  tan,"  she  said. 

"Well,  I  had  a  good  baking  in  Spain  and  South  America," 
he  answered.  Their  eyes  met  and  they  smiled.  In  effect  she 
had  said,  "Well,  you  are  a  fine  fellow,"  and  he  had  answered, 
"Yes,  perhaps  I  am." 

"I  like  a  man  to  travel,"  she  went  on,  tossing  her  head  and 
looking  altogether  fierce  Ellen's  mother.  "I  never  go  into 
the  bank  without  looking  at  the  clerks  and  thinking  what 


88  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

sumphs  they  are,  sitting  on  their  high  stools."  She  seemed 
to  have  come  to  some  conclusion  to  treat  him  as  one  of  the 
family,  for  she  retrieved  her  knitting  from  the  mantelpiece 
and  turned  her  armchair  more  cosily  to  the  fire,  and  began  a 
sauntering  of  the  tongue  that  he  knew  meant  that  she  liked 
him.  "I  hope  you  don't  think  Ellen  a  wild  girl,  running  about 
to  these  meetings  all  alone.  It's  not  what  I  would  like,  of 
course,  but  I  say  nothing,  for  this  Suffrage  business  keeps 
the  bairn  amused.  I'm  not  much  of  a  companion  to  her.  I'm 
getting  on,  you  see.  She  was  my  youngest." 

"The  youngest!"  he  exclaimed.  "I  didn't  know.  I  thought 
she  was  an  only  child."  He  flushed  at  this  betrayal  of  the 
interest  he  felt  in  her. 

"She's  that  now.  But  I  had  three  others.  They  all  died 
before  Ellen  was  born.  They  sickened  for  influenza  on  a  bad 
winter  voyage  my  husband  and  I  made  from  America."  She 
mourned  over  some  remote  grievance  as  well  as  the  sorrow. 
"One  was  a  boy.  He  was  just  turned  five.  That's  a  snapshot 
of  Ronnie  on  the  mantelpiece.  A  gentleman  on  board  took  it 
the  day  he  was  taken  ill." 

He  stood  up  to  look  at  it.  "He  must  have  been  a  jolly 
little  chap." 

"He  was  Ellen/s  build  and  colour,  and  he  was  wonderfully 
clever  for  his  age.  He  would  have  been  something  out  of  the 
ordinary  if  he  had  lived.  I  knew  it  wasn't  wise  to  sail  just 
then.  I  said  to  wait  till  the  New  Year.  .  .  ."  Her  voice 
changed,  and  he  perceived  that  she  was  making  use  of  the 
strange  power  to  carry  on  disputes  with  the  dead  which  is 
possessed  by  widows.  The  tone  was  a  complete  reconstruc- 
tion of  her  marriage.  There  was  a  girn  in  it,  as  .if  she  had 
learned  to  expect  contradiction  and  disregard  as  the  habitual 
response  to  all  her  remarks,  and  at  the  back  of  that  a  terror, 
far  more  dignified  than  the  protest  to  which  it  gave  birth,  at 
the  dreadful  things  she  knew  would  happen  because  she  was 
disregarded,  and  a  small,  weak,  guilty  sense  that  she  had  not 
made  her  protest  loudly  and,  perhaps,  cleverly  enough.  Life 
had  behaved  very  meanly  to  this  woman.  When  she  was 
young  and  sweet  her  sweetness  had  been  violated  and  crushed 
by  something  harsh  and  reckless;  and  now  she  was  not  sweet 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  89 

any  longer,  but  just  a  wisp  of  an  old  woman,  and  nobody 
would  ever  bother  about  her  again;  and  life  gives  one  no 
second  chances.  Yaverland  lamented,  as  Ellen  had  done,  the 
fate  of  those  exceptional  people  who  are  old  or  not  perfectly 
happy. 

"You're  not  Irish,  are  you?"  she  enquired  seriously;  and 
immediately  he  knew  that  her  husband  had  been  Irish,  and 
that  she  held  a  naive  and  touching  belief  that  no  one  but  a 
man  of  his  race  would  have  behaved  as  he  had  done,  that  all 
other  men  would  have  been  kind.  Particularly  now  that  Ellen 
was  growing  such  a  big  girl  she  didn't  want  any  Irish  coming 
into  this  little  home,  where  at  least  there  was  peace  and  quiet. 

"No,"  he  said  reassuringly,  "I'm  not  Irish.  My  people  have 
been  in  Essex  for  hundreds  of  years.  I'm  afraid,"  he  added, 
for  so,  evident  was  it  that  most  of  her  fellow-creatures  had 
dealt  cheatingly  with  her  that  decent  people  felt  a  special 
obligation  to  treat  her  honestly,  "my  grandmother  was  an 
O'Connor,  but  she  was  half  French.  Lord,  what's  that?" 

It  seemed  as  if  a  heavy  sea  was  breaking  on  the  back  of  the 
house  as  on  a  sea-wall.  The  gasolier  trembled,  the  floor 
throbbed,  the  little  goblin  dwelling  pulsated  as  if  it  were 
alarmed.  Only  the  continued  calm  of  Mrs.  Melville  at  her 
knitting  and  the  coarse  threads  of  music  running  through  the 
sound  persuaded  him  that  this  riot  was  the  result  of  some 
genial  human  activity. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  you  notice  it,  being  a  stranger,"  said  Mrs. 
Melville.  "We  hardly  hear  it  now.  You  see,  they've  turned 
the  Wesleyan  Hall  that  backs  on  to  the  Square  into  a  dancing- 
hall,  and  this  is  the  grand  noise  they  make  with  their  feet. 
It's  not  a  nice  place.  'Gentlemen  a  shilling,  ladies  invited/  it 
says  outside.  Still,  we  don't  complain,  for  the  noise  is  nothing 
noticeable  and  it  reduces  the  rent." 

This  was  a  masterpiece  of  circumstance.  By  nothing  more 
than  a  thin  wall  which  shook  to  .music  was  this  little  home 
divided  from  a  thick-aired  place  where  ugly  people  lurched 
against  each  other  lustfully;  and  yet  it  had  been  made  an  im- 
pregnable fort  of  loveliness  and  decency  by  this  virtuous 
ageing  woman,  whose  slight  silliness  was  but  a  holy  abstinence, 
a  refusal  to  side  with  common  sense  because  that  was  so  often 


90  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

concerned  in  cruel  decisions,  by  this  girl  who  was  so  young 
that  it  seemed  at  the  sight  of  her  as  if  time  had  turned  back 
again  and  earth  rolled  unstained  by  history,  and  so  beautiful 
that  it  seemed  as  if  henceforth  eternity  could  frame  nothing 
but  happiness.  The  smile  of  Ellen  had  made  a  faery  ring 
where  heavy-footed  dancers  could  not  enter;  her  gravity  had 
made  a  sanctuary  as  safe  as  any  church  crowned  with  a  belfry 
and  casketing  the  Host.  And  he,  participating  in  the  safety  of 
the  place,  pitied  the  men  behind  the  shaking  wall,  and  all  men 
over  the  world  who  had  committed  themselves  to  that  search 
for  pleasure  which  makes  joy  inaccessible.  They  had  chosen 
frustration  for  their  destiny.  Because  they  desired  some 
ecstasy  that  would  lighten  the  leaden  substance  of  life  they 
turned  to  drunkenness,  which  did  no  more  than  jumble  reality, 
steep  the  earth  in  aniline  dyes,  tinge  the  sunset  with  magenta. 
Because  they  desired  love  they  sought  out  women  who,  al- 
though dedicated  to  sex,  were  sexually  cancelled  by  repeated 
use,  like  postage-stamps  on  a  much  re-directed  letter,  who 
efficiently  went  through  the  form  of  passion,  yet  presented  it 
so  empty  of  all  exaltation  that  their  lovers  left  them  feeling 
as  if  they  were  victims  of  a  practical  joke. 

And  here,  not  half  a  dozen  yards  from  some  of  these  seekers, 
was  one  who  could  bring  to  these  desires  a  lovelier  death  than 
they  would  meet  on  the  dirty  bed  of  gratification  or  the  hard 
pallet  of  renunciation.  Because  the  untouched  truth  about 
her  could  give  ecstasy  one  would  not  lose  the  power  of  seeing 
things  as  they  are,  and  she  made  one  forget  the  usual  sexual 
story.  Although  she  was  formed  for  love  and  the  intention  of 
being  her  lover  was  now  a  fundamental  part  of  him,  she  was 
so  busy  with  her  voice  and  body  in  playing  quaint  variations 
on  the  theme  of  herself  that  he  did  not  mind  how  long  might 
be  the  journey  to  their  marriage.  She  was  more  interesting 
than  any  other  person  or  thing  in  the  world.  She  was  going 
to  have  more  interesting  experiences ;  because  her  unique  sim- 
plicity comprehended  a  wild  impatience  with  lies  she  would 
have  a  claim  on  reality  that  would  give  her  unprecedented 
wisdom.  Now  he  could  understand  why  saints  in  their  nar- 
row cells  despise  sinners  as  dull  stay-at-homes. 

And  when  she  burst  into  the  room  again  he  saw  that  all 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  91 

he  had  been  thinking  about  her  was  true.  It  might  be  that 
everybody  else  on  earth  would  see  her  as  nothing  but  a  red- 
haired  girl  in  an  ill-fitting  blue  serge  dress  with  an  appalling 
tartan  silk  vest,  but  still  it  was  true. 

"Here  you  are,"  she  said,  "you  put  your  name  there!'  She 
bent  over  him  as  he  wrote  and  wished  she  could  put  some- 
thing on  the  form  to  show  how  magnificent  he  was  and  what 
a  catch  she  had  made  for  the  movement. 

Well,  there  was  no  possible  excuse  for  staying  any  longer, 
and  the  poor  old  lady  was  yawning  behind  her  knitting.  He 
rose  and  said  good-bye,  wondering  as  he  spoke  how  he  could 
make  his  entrance  here  again  and  how  he  could  break  it  to 
these  women,  who  were  like  hardy  secular  nuns,  that  he  came 
for  love.  If  this  had  been,  a  Spanish  or  a  Cariocan  mother 
and  daughter  how  easy  it  would  have  been!  The  elder 
woman's  eyes  would  have  crackled  brightly  among  her  wrin- 
kles and  she  would  have  looked  at  her  daughter  with  the  air 
of  genial  treachery  which  old  women  wear  when  they  contrive 
a  young  girl's  marriage,  and  she  would  have  dropped  some 
subtle  hint  at  the  next  convenient  assignation;  and  the  girl 
herself  would  have  stood  by  like  a  dark  living  scythe  in  the 
Latin  attitude  of  modesty,  very  straight  from  the  waist  to  the 
feet,  but  the  shoulders  bent  as  if  to  hide  the  bosom  and  the 
head  bowed,  mysteriously  intimating  that  she  knew  nothing 
and  yet  could  promise  to  submit  to  everything.  But  here  was 
Mrs.  Melville  saying  something  quite  vague  about  hoping 
that  he  would  drop  in  if  he  was  passing,  and  Ellen  lifting  to 
him  a  stubborn  face  that  warned  him  there  would  be  a  thou- 
sand resistances  to  overcome  before  she  would  own  herself 
a  being  accessible  to  passion.  Yet  this  harsh  inexpertness 
about  life  was  the  essence  that  made  these  people  delightful 
to  him.  It  was  unreasonable,  but  it  was  true,  that  he  adored 
them  because  they  were  difficult. 

"Ellen,  run  out  and  light  the  hall  gas  for  Mr.  Yaverland." 
And  from  the  courtsey  in  the  tone  and  something  gracious  in 
Ellen's  obedience  he  saw  that  they  were  too  poor  to  keep  the 
gas  burning  in  the  hall  all  the  evening,  and  so  the  lighting  of 
it  ranked  as  a  ceremonial  for  an  honoured  guest.  They  were 
dear  people. 


92  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

As  he  buttoned  his  oilskins  to  the  chin  while  Ellen  stood 
ready  to  open  the  front  door  he  did  not  dare  look  at  her  be- 
cause his  stare  would  have  been  so  fixed  and  bright.  He  set 
his  eyes  instead  on  the  engravings,  which  for  the  most  part 
represented  Robert  Burns  as  the  Scotch  like  to  picture  their 
national  poet,  with  hair  sleek  and  slightly  waved  like  the  coat 
of  a  retriever  hanging  round  a  face  oval  and  blank  and  sweet 
like  a  tea-biscuit. 

"You  seem  to  admire  Burns,"  he  said. 

"Me?  No,  indeed.  Those  are  my  grandmother's  pictures. 
I  think  nothing  of  the  man.  His  intellectual  content  was 
miserably  small." 

"That's  a  proposition  he  never  butted  up  against " 

"What?" 

"A  woman  who  said  that  his  intellectual  content  was  mis- 
erably small.  You're  one  of  Time's  revenges.  .  .  ." 

She  didn't  follow  his  little  joke,  although  she  smiled  faintly 
with  pleasure  at  being  called  a  woman,  because  she  was  dis- 
tressfully wondering  if  her  reluctance  to  let  him  go  was  a 
premonition  of  some  disaster  that  lurked  for  him  outside.  She 
so  strangely  wanted  him  to  stay.  She  could  actually  have 
wound  her  arms  about  him,  which  was  a  queer  enough  thing 
to  want  to  do,  as  if  the  feelers  of  some  nightmare-crawling 
horned  beast  were  twitching  for  him  in  the  darkness  beyond 
the  door.  This  inordinate  emotion  must  have  some  meaning, 
and  it  could  have  none  other  than  that  Great  Granny  Macleod 
had  really  had  second  sight,  and  she  had  inherited  it;  it  was 
warning  her  that  something  dreadful  was  going  to  happen  to 
him  on  his  way  to  the  hotel.  "Well,  if  I  see  anything  in  the 
papers  to-morrow  morning  about  a  big  man  being  run  down 
by  a  motor-car  in  the  fog,  I'll  know  there's  something  in  the 
supernatural,"  said  the  cool  elf  that  dwelt  in  her  head.  But 
agony  transfixed  her  like  an  arrow  because  her  thought  re- 
minded her  that  this  glorious  being  whose  eyes  blazed  with 
serenity  as  other  people's  eyes  blaze  only  with  rage,  was  sus- 
ceptible to  pain  and  would  some  day  be  subject  to  death. 

"Good-night,"  he  said.  He  did  not  know  why  her  breath 
had  failed  and  why  she  had  raised  her  hand  to  her  throat,  but 
he  knew  that  his  presence  was  doing  marvellous  things  to  her, 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  93 

and  he  was  sure  that  they  were  beautiful  things,  for  everything 
that  passed  between  them  from  now  on  till  the  end  of  time 
would  be  flawlessly  beautiful.  "Good-night/'  he  said  again, 
and  stopped  when  he  had  gone  a  yard  or  two  down  the  path 
simply  that  they  might  speak  to  each  other  again.  "You  must 
shut  the  door.  You're  letting  in  the  rain  and  cold." 

"No,"  she  said  dreamily,  sleepily,  and  slowly  closed  the  door. 

He  went  on  in  the  impatient  mood  of  a  man  who  has  been 
secretly  married  and  must  leave  his  wife  in  a  poor  lodging  until 
he  can  disclose  his  marriage. 


CHAPTER  III 


WHEN  she  opened  the  door  with  her  latchkey  on  Monday 
evening,  late  from  a  class  in  Advanced  Commercial 
Spanish  at  Skerry's  College,  and  sat  down  in  the  hall  to  take 
her  boots  off,  her  mother  cried  out  from  the  kitchen,  "Ellen, 
I've  got  the  grandest  surprise  for  you !" 

These  fanciful  women!  "And  what's  that?"  she  cried  back 
tolerantly,  though  the  dark  thoughts  buzzed  about  her  head 
like  bees.  She  thought  she  could  feel  better  if  she  could  only 
tell  someone  how  Mr.  Philip  had  sat  by  her  fire  like  a  nasty 
wee  black  imp  and  said  that  awful  thing.  But  she  must  not 
tell  her  mother,  who  would  only  be  fretted  by  it  and  ask  like 
a  little  anxious  mouse,  "You're  sure  you've  not  said  anything, 
dear?  You're  sure  you've  been  a  careful  girl  with  your  work, 
dear?"  and  would  brace  herself  with  heartrending  bravery  to 
meet  this  culminating  misfortune.  "Ah,  well,  dear,  if  you  do 
have  to  look  round  for  a  new  post  we  must  just  manage."  So 
she  must  keep  silent  and  seem  cheerful,  though  that  memory 
was  rolling  round  and  round  in  her  brain  like  a  hot  marble. 

"Away  into  the  dining-room  and  see  what  it  is,"  said  Mrs. 
Melville,  coming  out  with  the  cocoa- jug  in  her  hand.  She  had 
put  on  her  brighter  shawl,  the  tartan  one. 

"You  look  as  we'd  been  left  a  fortune,"  said  Ellen. 

"No  fear  of  that.  If  your  grand-aunt  Watson  remembess 
you  with  a  hundred  pounds  that's  all  we  can  expect.  But 
there's  something  fine  waiting  for  you.  Finish  taking  off  that 
muddy  boot  before  you  come.  Now!" 

She  flung  open  the  door. 

"Roses !"  breathed  Ellen.  "Mother— roses  !" 

On  the  table  between  the  loaf  and  the  syrup-tin  there  was  a 
jug  filled  with  red  and  white  roses;  on  the  mantelpiece  three 
vases  that  had  long  held  nothing  but  dust  now  held  roses, 
and  doubtless  felt  a  resurrection  joy;  and  on  the  book-cases 

94 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  95 

roses  lifted  stiff  stems  from  two  jam-jars.  Ellen,  being  a 
slave  of  the  eye,  grew  so  pale  and  so  gay  at  the  sight  of  the 
flowers  that  almost  everybody  in  the  world  except  one  man 
would  have  jeered  at  her,  and  she  put  her  arms  round  her 
mother's  neck  and  kissed  her,  though  she  knew  the  gift  could 
not  have  come  from  her.  The  flowers  were  beautiful  in  so 
many  ways.  They  were  beautiful  just  as  roses,  because 
"roses"  is  such  a  lovely  word;  as  clear  patches  of  -red  and 
white  because  red  and  white  are  such  lovely  colours;  and  he- 
cause  a  red  rose  has  so  strange  an  air  of  complicity  in  human 
passion,  and  the  first  white  rose  was  surely  grown  from  some 
phosphorescent  cutting  that  dropped  through  the  starlight  from 
the  moon.  And  these  were  the  furled,  attenuated  blooms  of 
winter,  born  out  of  due  season  and  nurtured  in  stoked  warmth, 
like  the  delicate  children  of  kings,  and  emanating  a  faint  re- 
luctant scent  like  the  querulous  sweet  smile  of  an  invalid. 
They  looked  hard  and  cold,  as  if  they  had  protected  themselves 
against  the  cold  weather  by  imitating  the  substance  of  precious 
stones. 

They  were  an  orgy  and  a  prophecy,  these  flowers.  They 
were  an  outburst  of  unnecessary  loveliness  in  a  house  that  did 
not  dare  open  its  doors  to  anything  but  necessities;  and  they 
showed,  since  they  blossomed  here  though  the  rain  roared  down 
outside,  that  the  world  was  not  after  all  an  immutably  un- 
pleasant place,  and  could  be  turned  upside  down  very  enjoy- 
ably  if  one  had  the  money  to  buy  things.  It  really  was  worth 
while  struggling  to  get  on.  .  .  . 

"Mother,  where  did  they  come  from?" 

"Ah!"  said  Mrs.  Melville  waggishly. 

"Och,  tell  me !  I  don't  imagine  you  went  out  and  pawned 
the  family  jewels.  Och,  do  tell  me!  Come  on!" 

"A  boy  brought  them  up  from  Gilbey,  the  florist's,  this  morn- 
ing. I  could  have  fallen  down  when  I  opened  the  door.  And 
the  wee  brat  of  a  boy  tried  to  convey  to  me  that  he  wasn't 
used  to  coming  to  such  a  place.  He  wore  a  look  like  a  mis- 
sionary in  Darkest  Africa.  They  were  left  for  Miss  Melville, 
mind  you.  Not  for  your  poor  old  mother.  And  they're  from 
Mr.  Yaverland.  Yon's  his  card  sticking  up  against  your 
grandmother  on  the  mantelpiece." 


96  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

Ellen's  hands,  outspread  over  the  roses,  dropped  to  her  side. 

"I  would  have  thought  he  had  more  sense,"  she  said  sulkily. 
"If  he'd  money  to  burn  he  should  have  sent  this  lot  to  the 
infirmary." 

"Och,  Ellen,  are  you  not  pleased?" 

"What's  the  man  thinking  of  to  fill  us  up  with  flowers  as  if 
we  were  an  Episcopal  church  on  Easter  Sunday?" 

"Ellen,  you've  no  notion  of  manners.  Gentlemen  often 
send  flowers  to  ladies  they  admire.  When  your  Aunt  Bessie 
and  I  were  girls  many's  the  fine  present  of  flowers  we  got  from 
officers  at  the  Castle." 

"I've  neither  time  nor  taste  for  such  things.  It  makes  me 
feel  like  a  hospital.  He'll  be  sending  us  new-laid  eggs  and  lint 
bandages  next.  The  man's  mad." 

"Ellen,  you're  a  queer  girl,"  complained  Mrs.  Melville.  "If 
this  argy-bargying  about  votes  for  women  makes  you  turn  up 
your  nose  at  bonny  flowers  that  a  decent  fellow  sends  you  I'm 
sorry  for  you — it's  just  tempting  Providence  to  scorn  good 
mercies  like  this.  I'll  away  and  take  the  fish-pie  out  of  the 
oven." 

It  was  strange  that  as  soon  as  her  mother  had  left  the  room 
she  began  to  feel  differently  about  the  roses.  Of  course  they 
were  very  beautiful ;  and  they  were  contenting  in  a  quite  magic 
way,  for  besides  satisfying  her  longing  for  pretty  things,  they 
seemed  to  have  deprived  of  urgency  all  her  other  longings,  even 
including  her  desire  for  a  vote,  for  eminence  of  some  severe 
sort,  for  an  income  of  three  hundred  pounds  a  year  (which  was 
the  most  she  believed  a  person  with  a  social  conscience  could 
enjoy),  for  a  perpetual  ticket  for  the  Paterson  Concerts  at  the 
MacEwan  Hall,  and  for  perfect  self-possession.  She  felt  as 
if  these  things  were  already  hers,  or  as  if  they  were  coming 
so  certainly  that  she  need  not  fret  about  them  any  more  than 
one  frets  about  a  parcel  that  one  knows  has  been  posted,  or 
concerning  some  desires,  as  if  it  did  not  matter  so  much  as 
she  had  thought  whether  she  got  them  or  not.  Especially  that 
dream  of  being  one  of  a  company  of  men  and  women  whose 
bodies  should  be  grave  as  elms  with  dignity  and  whose  words 
should  be  bright  as  butterflies  with  wit  struck  her  as  being 
foolish.  It  was  as  idle  as  wanting  to  be  born  in  the  days  of 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  97 

Queen  Elizabeth.  What  she  really  wanted  was  a  friend.  She 
had  felt  the  need  of  one  since  Rachael  Wing  went  to  London. 
Surely  Richard  Yaverland  meant  to  be  her  friend,  since  he 
sent  flowers  to  her.  But  she  wished  the  gift  could  have  been 
made  secretly,  and  if  he  came  to  pay  a  visit  she  should  be  quite 
alone.  For  no  reason  that  she  could  formulate,  the  thought 
of  even  her  mother  setting  eyes  on  them  together  seemed  a 
threat  of  disgrace.  She  wished  that  they  could  be  standing 
side  by  side  at  the  fire  in  that  five  minutes  when  it  is  sheer 
extravagance  to  light  the  gas  but  so  dark  that  one  may  stare 
as  one  cannot  by  day,  so  that  she  might  look  at  what  the  driving 
flamelight  showed  of  his  black,  sea-roughened  magnificence. 
At  her  perfect  memory  of  him  she  felt  a  rush  of  exhilaration 
which  left  her  confused  and  glad  and  benevolent. 

"Mother,  dear,"  she  said,  for  Mrs.  Melville  had  come  back 
with  the  fish-pie,  and  was  bidding  her  with  an  offended  brisk- 
ness to  sit  forward  and  eat  her  meal  while  it  was  hot,  "they're 
the  loveliest  things.  I  can't  think  what  for  I  was  so  cross." 

"Neither  can  I.  There's  so  little  bonny  comes  our  way 
that  I  do  think  we  might  be  grateful  when  we  get  a  treat." 

"I'm  sorry.    I  can't  think  what  came  over  me." 

"Never  mind.  But,  you  know,  you're  sometimes  terribly 
like  your  father.  You  must  fight  against  it." 

They  sat  down  to  supper,  looking  up  from  their  food  at  the 
roses. 

"Mother,  the  gas  is  awful  bad  for  them.  Carbonic  acid  is 
just  murderous  to  flowers." 

"I  was  thinking  that  myself.  It  was  well  known  that  gas 
was  bad  for  flowers  even  when  I  was  young,  though  we  didn't 
talk  about  carbonic  acid.  But  if  you  don't  see  them  by  gaslight 
you'll  never  see  them,  for  it's  dark  by  five.  They  must 
fall  faster  than  they  would  have  done." 

"Och,  no!  I'd  rather  you  had  the  pleasure  of  them  by 
day,  and  let  the  poor  things  last.  I  must  content  myself  with 
a  look  at  them  at  breakfast." 

"Nonsense!  They're  your  flowers,  lassie.  But  do  you  not 
think  it  would  do  if  we  brought  in  the  two  candles  and  turned 
out  the  gas?  It'll  be  a  bit  dark,  but  it  isn't  as  if  there  were 
many  bones  in  the  fish-pie." 


98  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

And  that  is  what  they  did.  It  was  a  satisfactory  arrange- 
ment, for  then  there  was  a  bright  soft  light  on  the  red  and 
white  petals,  and  a  drapery  of  darkness  about  the  mean  walls 
of  the  room,  and  a  thickening  of  the  atmosphere  which  hid  the 
archness  on  the  older  woman's  face,  so  that  the  girl  dreamed 
untormented  and  without  knowing  that  she  dreamed. 

"Ah,  well!"  sighed  Mrs.  Melville  after  a  silence,  with  that 
air  of  irony  which  she  was  careful  to  impart  to  her  sad  re- 
marks, as  if  she  wanted  to  remove  any  impression  that  she 
respected  the  fate  that  had  assailed  her.  "I  don't  know  how 
many  years  it  is  since  I  sat  down  with  roses  on  the  table." 

"I  never  have  before,"  said  Ellen. 


ii 

It  was  indeed  much  more  as  the  friend  that  Ellen  wanted 
than  as  the  declared  lover  he  had  intended  to  be  that  Yaverland 
came  to  Hume  Park  Square  on  Saturday  in  answer  to  the  letter 
of  thanks  which,  after  the  careful  composition  of  eight  drafts, 
she  had  sent  him.  All  week  he  had  meant  to  ask  her  to  marry 
him  at  the  first  possible  moment.  By  day,  when  the  thought 
of  her  rushed  in  upon  him  like  a  sweet-smelling  wind  every 
time  he  lifted  his  mind  from  his  work,  and  by  night,  when 
she  stood  red-gold  and  white  on  every  wall  of  his  room  in  the 
darkness,  it  grew  more  and  more  incredible  that  he  could  meet 
her  and  not  tell  her  that  he  wanted  to  spend  all  the  rest  of  his 
life  with  her.  He  felt  ashamed  that  he  was  not  her  husband, 
and  at  the  back  of  his  mind  was  a  confused  consciousness  of 
inverted  impropriety,  as  if  continuance  in  his  present  course 
would  bring  upon  him  denunciations  from  the  pulpit  for  living 
in  open  chastity  apart  from  a  woman  to  whom  he  was  really 
married.  There  was,  too,  a  strange  sense  of  a  severer  guilt, 
as  if  by  not  letting  his  love  for  her  have  its  way  he  was  com- 
mitting the  crime  a  scientific  man  commits  when  he  fails  to 
communicate  the  result  of  a  valuable  research.  Even  when  he 
went  out  to  mount  his  motor-cycle  for  the  ride  to  Edinburgh 
he  meant  to  force  on  her  at  once  as  much  knowledge  of  his  love 
as  her  youth  could  hold. 

But  going  down  the  garden  he  met  the  postman,  who  gave 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  99 

him  a  letter ;  and  before  he  opened  it  it  checked  his  enterprise. 
For  the  address  was  in  his  mother's  handwriting,  and  though 
it  was  still  black  and  exquisite,  like  the  tracery  of  bare  tree- 
boughs  against  the  sky,  it  was  larger  than  usual,  and  he  had 
often  before  noticed  that  she  wrote  like  that  only  when  her 
eyes  had  been  strained  by  one  of  her  bouts  of  sleeplessness. 
"Why  doesn't  she  go  to  a  doctor  and  get  him  to  give  her  some- 
thing for  it?"  he  asked  himself  impatiently,  annoyed  at  the 
casting  of  this  shadow  on  his  afternoon ;  but  it  struck  him  what 
a  lovely  and  characteristic  thing  it  was  that,  though  his  mother 
had  suffered  great  pain  from  sleeplessness  for  thirty  years,  she 
had  never  bought  peace  with  a  drug.  Nothing  would  make 
her  content  to  tamper  with  reality.  He  found,  too,  in  her 
letter  a  phrase  that  bore  out  his  suspicion,  a  complaint  of  the 
length  of  the  winter,  a  confessed  longing  for  his  return  in  the 
New  Year,  which  was  a  breach  of  her  habitual  pretence,  which 
never  took  him  in  for  an  instant  and  which  she  kept  up  per- 
haps for  that  very  reason,  that  she  did  not  care  when  she  saw 
him  again. 

"Oh,  God,  she  must  be  going  through  it !"  he  muttered.  He 
could  see  her  as  she  would  be  at  this  hour,  sitting  at  the  wide 
window  in  her  room,  which  she  kept  uncurtained  so  that  the 
Thames  estuary  and  the  silver  fingers  it  thrust  into  the  marshes 
should  lie  under  her  eye  like  a  map.  Her  nightlong  contest 
with  memory  would  not  have  destroyed  her  air  of  power  nor 
wiped  from  her  lips  and  eyes  that  appearance  of  having  just 
finished  smiling  at  a  joke  that  was  not  quite  good  enough  to 
prolong  her  merriment,  but  being  quite  ready  to  smile  at  an- 
other; it  would  only  have  made  her  rather  ugly.  Her  hair 
would  be  straight  and  greasy,  her  skin  leaden,  the  flesh  of  her 
face  heavy  except  when  something  in  the  scene  she  looked  on 
invoked  that  expression  which  he  could  not  bear.  Her  face 
would  become  girlish  and  alive,  and  after  one  moment  of  for- 
getfulness  would  settle  into  a  mask  of  despair.  Something  on 
the  marshes  had  reminded  her  of  her  love.  She  had  remem- 
bered how  one  frosty  morning  she  and  her  lover  had  walked 
with  linked  arms  through  cold  dancing  air  along  the  grassy 
terrace  that  divided  the  pastures,  the  green  bank  to  the  east 
sloping  to  a  ditch  whose  bright  water  gave  back  the  morning 


100  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

sky,  the  bank  to  the  west  sloping  white  with  rime  to  a  ditch 
of  black  ice;  or  she  had  remembered  how,  one  summer  night 
when  the  sky  was  a  yellow  clot  of  starshine,  she  had  sat  in 
the  long  grass  under  the  sea-wall  with  his  head  in  her  lap. 
And  then  she  had  remembered  the  end. 

It  was  strange  that  such  things  could  hurt  after  thirty  years. 
Yet  it  seemed  less  strange  to  him  to-day  than  it  had  ever  done 
before,  because  he  could  see  that  the  love  that  would  happen  if 
he  was  Ellen's  lover  would  be  a  living  thing  in  thirty  years' 
time.  ...  It  would  be  immutably  glorious  as  his  mother's  love 
had  been  interminably  grievous.  Yet  suddenly  he  did  not  want 
to  think  of  Ellen  or  the  prospect  of  triumphant  wooing  any 
more.  It  seemed  disloyalty  to  be  making  happy  love  when  his 
mother  was  going  through  one  of  her  bad  times.  He  would 
have  to  go  to  Hume  Park  Square,  but  he  would  talk  coolly  and 
stay  only  a  little  time. 

And  before  he  had  gone  very  far  on  his  way  to  Edinburgh 
something  else  happened  to  blanch  his  temper.  A  heavy  motor- 
van  rumbled  ahead  of  him  with  a  lurching  course  that  made 
him  wonder  at  the  spirit  of  the  Scotch  that  can  get  drunk  on 
the  early  afternoon  of  a  clear  grey  day ;  and  ten  minutes  after 
a  turn  of  the  road  brought  him  to  an  overturned  cart,  its  in- 
side wheels  shattered  like  cracked  biscuits  and  a  horse  strug- 
gling wildly  in  the  shafts,  and  a  lad  lying  under  the  hedge 
with  blood  spattered  on  a  curd-white  face.  Men  and  a  hurdle 
had  to  be  fetched  from  the  farm  that  was  in  sight,  the  doctor 
had  to  be  summoned  from  a  village  three  miles  away,  and  then 
he  was  asked  to  wait  lest  there  should  be  need  of  a  further 
errand  to  a  cottage  hospital.  He  was  in  a  jarred  mood  by  then, 
for  the  farm  people  had  been  inhumanly  callous  to  the  lad's 
suffering,  but  were  just  human  enough  to  know  that  their  be- 
haviour was  disgusting,  and  were  disguising  their  reluctance 
to  lift  their  little  finders  to  save  a  stranger's  life  as  resentment 
against  Yaverland  himself  for  his  peremptory  way  of  request- 
ing their  help.  They  had  known  from  his  speech  that  he  came 
from  the  south,  so  as  he  sat  in  the  kitchen  they  exchanged 
comments  on  the  incapacity  of  the  English  to  understand  the 
sturdy  independence  of  the  Scotch.  He  began  to  fret  at  this 
delay  among  these  beastly  people  in  their  sour  smoke,  and  to 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  101 

think  greedily  of  how  by  this  time  he  might  have  been  with 
Ellen  listening  to  the  grave  conversation  that  sat  as  quaintly 
on  her  loveliness  as  tortoiseshell  spectacles  on  an  elfin  nose, 
and  looking  at  that  incomparable  hair. 

But  it  struck  him  that  this  impatience  was  a  rotten  thing  to 
feel  when  it  was  a  matter  of  helping  a  poor  chap  in  pain.  He 
rose  and  opened  the  door  to  see  if  the  doctor  was  coming  out 
of  the  room  across  the  passage  where  the  patient  lay;  but  he 
could  hear  nothing  but  the  lad's  moans.  He  shivered.  They 
reminded  him  of  the  night  when  for  the  first  time  he  had  heard 
his  mother  make  just  such  anguished  sounds  as  these.  He 
was  twenty-one  then,  and  a  student  at  South  Kensington,  and 
it  was  on  one  of  his  week-ends  at  Yaverland's  End.  He  had 
sat  up  late  working,  and  as  he  was  passing  his  mother's  door 
on  his  way  to  bed  he  heard  the  sound  of  a  lament  sadder  than 
any  weeping,  since  it  had  no  hint  of  a  climax  but  went  on  and 
on,  as  if  it  knew  the  sorrow  that  inspired  it  would  not  fail  all 
through  eternity.  It  appalled  him,  and  he  felt  shy  of  going  in, 
so  he  went  on  to  his  room  and  sat  on  his  bed.  After  an  hour 
he  went  out  into  the  passage  and  listened.  She  still  was  moan- 
ing. Without  knocking,  lest  her  pride  should  forbid  him  to 
come  in,  he  went  into  her  room. 

She  was  sitting  at  the  table  by  the  window  playing  patience, 
and  she  stared  over  her  shoulder  at  him  with  tearless  eyes. 
But  all  the  windows  were  flung  open  to  let  out  misery,  and  she 
had  lit  several  candles,  as  well  as  the  electric  light ;  and  winged 
things  that  had  risen  from  the  marshes  to  visit  this  brightness 
died  in  those  candle-flames  without  intervention  from  her  who 
would  at  ordinary  times  try  to  prevent  the  death  of  anything. 
She  wore  nothing  over  her  nightgown,  and  her  lilac  and  gold 
kimono  lay  in  the  middle  of  the  floor.  Men  who  were  lost  in 
the  bush  stripped  themselves,  he  had  often  heard  it  said ;  and 
he  had  seen  panic-stricken  women  on  the  deck  of  a  foundering 
ship  throw  off  their  coats.  She  had  turned  back  to  her  cards 
immediately,  and  he  had  not  spoken,  but  in  some  way  he  knew 
that  she  fully  understood.  "Take  those  books  off  the  armchair 
and  sit  down,"  she  ordered  in  her  rough,  soft  voice. 

For  some  time  he  sat  there,  while  over  and  over  again  she 
shuffled  and  dealt  and  played  her  game  and  started  another 


102  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

at  a  speed  which  dazzled  his  eyes;  until  she  rose  and  said  in- 
differently, "Let's  go  to  bed.  It  must  be  past  four."  There 
was  an  upward  inflection  in  her  naming  of  the  hour  that  showed 
she  believed  it  later  than  she  said,  that  she  felt  that  this  long 
agony  must  have  brought  her  quite  close  to  the  dawn,  but  she 
had  not  dared  to  say  so  for  fear  of  the  disappointment  which 
she  knew  followed  always  on  her  imagining  of  brighter  things. 
But  it  was  not  yet  three.  "I  can't  think  why  we're  sitting  up 
like  this,"  she  continued  scornfully,  and  her  face  crumpled  sud- 
denly as  she  fell  sideways  into  his  arms,  crying,  "Richard! 
Richard!"  His  heart  seemed  to  break  in  two.  He  held  her 
close  and  kissed  her  and  comforted  her,  and  carried  her  over 
to  the  bed,  entreating  her  to  lie  quietly  and  try  to  forget  and 
sleep.  "But  I  have  so  many  things  to  remember,"  she  re- 
minded him.  Turning  her  face  away  from  him,  and  drawing 
the  bedclothes  about  her  chin,  she  began  to  talk  very  rapidly 
about  the  intense  memories  that  pricked  her  like  a  thousand 
thorns.  But  at  the  sound  of  Roothing  Church  clock  striking, 
so  far  off  and  so  feebly  that  it  told  no  hour  but  merely  sweetly 
reminded  the  ear  of  time,  she  rolled  over  again  and  looked  at 
him,  smilingly,  glowingly,  sadly.  "Ah,  darling!"  she  said. 
"It  is  very  late.  Perhaps  if  you  hold  my  hand  I  will  drop  off 
to  sleep  now."  But  it  was  he  that  had  slept.  .  .  . 

And  she  was  going  through  a  bad  time  like  that  now. 

When  at  last  he  was  free  to  continue  his  ride  to  Edinburgh 
he  did  not  greatly  want  to  go.  He  would  have  turned  back 
to  Broxburn  had  he  not  reflected  that,  although  Ellen  and  her 
mother  had  not  named  any  particular  day  for  his  visit,  they 
might  perhaps  expect  him  this  afternoon.  Indeed,  he  became 
quite  certain  that  they  were  expecting  him.  But  nothing 
seemed  agreeable  to  him  in  his  abandonment  to  this  ritualist 
desire  to  live  soberly  for  a  little  so  that  he  might  share  the 
sorrow  of  the  woman  who  was  enduring  pain  because  she  had 
given  him  life.  He  certainly  would  not  make  love  to  Ellen. 
He  hoped  that  she  was  not  so  wonderful  as  he  had  remembered 
her. 

But  though  his  spirit  doubled  on  his  track  it  did  not  lead 
him  back  to  solitude.  Perhaps  when  the  sun  falls  over  the 
edge  of  polar-earth  the  Arctic  fox  laments  that  he  must  run 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  103 

through  the  night  alone,  for  in  the  white  livery  he  must  as- 
sume at  the  year's  death  he  leels  himself  beast  of  a  different 
kind  from  the  brown  mate  with  whom  he  sported  all  the  sum- 
mer-time ;  and  hears  a  soft  pad  on  the  snow  and  finds  her  run- 
ning by  his  side,  white  like  himself.  So  it  was  with  Yaverland 
when  he  came  to  Hume  Park  Square,  for  the  Ellen  he  found 
was  a  dove,  a  nun,  a  nurse.  Up  to  the  moment- she  opened  the 
door  to  him  she  had  been  a  sturdy,  rufous  thing,  a  terrier- 
tiger,  exasperated  because  she  had  imperilled  her  immortal 
soul  by  coming  off  her  Princes  Street  pitch  when  a  truly  con- 
scientious woman  would  have  gone  on  selling  Votes  for 
Women  for  at  least  five  minutes  longer;  and  because  she  had 
had  to  pretend  to  her  mother  all  through  tea  that  she  hadn't 
really  expected  him;  and  because  after  her  mother  had  gone 
out  she  had  begun  to  read  the  Scotsman's  report  of  an  anti- 
Suffrage  meeting  in  London.  "Yon  Lord  Curzon's  an  im- 
pudent birkie,"  she  said,  with  a  rush  of  tears  to  her  eyes  that 
seemed  even  to  herself  an  excessive  comment  on  Lord  Curzon ; 
then  the  knock  came.  "It'll  be  my  old  boots  back  from  the 
mending,"  she  had  told  herself  bitterly,  and  went  to  the  door 
like  a  shrew.  And  because  there  had  been  some  secret  diplo- 
macy between  their  souls  of  which  they  knew  nothing,  some 
mutual  promises  that  each  would  attempt  to  give  what  the 
other  felt  was  lacking  in  the  universe  at  the  moment,  the  first 
sight  of  him  made  her  change  herself  from  top  to  toe  to  a 
quiet,  kind  thing. 

The  little  sitting-room  was  drowsy  as  a  church,  its  darkness 
not  so  much  lit  as  stained  amber  by  candlelight,  and  her  voice 
was  quiet  and  pattering  and  gentle,  like  castanets  played  softly. 
She  made  him  tea,  though  it  was  far  too  late,  and  he  had 
politely  said  he  did  not  want  any,  and  afterwards  she  sat  by 
the  fire,  listening  without  exclamation  to  the  story  of  the  acci- 
dent, making  no  demand  on  him  for  argument  or  cheerfulness, 
sometimes  letting  the  conversation  sag  into  silence,  but  always 
showing  a  smile  that  such  a  time  meant  no  failure  of  goodwill. 
The  unique  quality  of  her  smile,  which  was  exquisitely  gay 
and  comically  irregular,  lifting  the  left  corner  of  her  mouth  a 
little  higher  than  the  right,  reminded  Yaverland  that  of  course 
he  loved  her.  It  would  make  it  all  right  if  he  wrote  to  his 


104  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

mother  about  her  at  once.  He  reflected  how  he  could  word  the 
letter  to  convey  that  this  girl  was  the  most  glorious  and  desir- 
able being  on  earth  without  lapsing  into  the  exuberance  of 
phrase  which  was  the  one  thing  that  made  her  turn  on  him 
the  speculative  gaze,  not  so  much  expressive  of  contempt  as 
admitting  that  the  word  contempt  had  certainly  passed  through 
her  mind,  which  she  habitually  turned  on  the  rest  of  the 
world.  .  .  . 

But  Ellen  was  speaking  now,  apologising  because  she  had 
made  him  eat  by  candlelight,  offering  to  light  the  gas,  explain- 
ing that  she  and  her  mother  had  burned  candles  all  the  week 
because  they  hurt  his  roses  less.  "But  surely,"  he  said,  "these 
roses  can't  be  the  ones  I  sent  you?  That  was  five  days  ago. 
These  look  quite  fresh."  Her  face  became  vivacious  and  pas- 
sionate ;  she  came  to  the  table  and  bent  over  the  vases  with  an 
excitement  that  would  have  struck  most  people  as  a  little  mad. 
"Of  course  these  are  your  roses !"  she  exclaimed.  "Five  days 
indeed!  They'll  keep  a  fortnight  the  way  mother  and  I  do 
them.  When  they  begin  to  droop  you  plunge  the  stalks  into 
boiling  water.  .  .  ." 

He  watched  her  with  quiet  delight.  In  the  course  of  his 
life  he  had  given  flowers  to  several  women,  but  none  of  them 
had  ever  plunged  their  stalks  into  boiling  water.  Instead  they 
had  stood  up  very  straight  in  their  shiny  gowns  and  lifted  the 
flowers  in  a  pretence  of  inhaling  the  fragrance  which  the  strong 
scent  they  used  must  certainly  have  prevented  them  from 
smelling,  and  had  sent  out  from  their  little  mouths  fluttering 
murmurs  of  gratitude  that  were  somehow  not  references  to 
the  flowers  at  all,  but  declarations  of  femaleness.  Surely  both 
the  woman  who  performed  that  conventional  gesture  and  the 
man  who  witnessed  it  were  very  pathetic.  It  was  as  if  the 
man  brought  the  flowers  as  a  symbol  of  the  wonderful  gifts 
he  might  have  given  her  if  they  had  been  real  lovers,  and  as 
if  the  woman  answered  by  those  female  murmurings  that  if 
they  had  been  real  lovers  she  would  have  repaid  him  with  such 
miracles  of  tenderness.  The  gesture  was  always  followed,  he 
remembered,  by  a  period  of  silence  when  she  laid  the  flowers 
aside  for  some  servant's  attention,  which  was  surely  a  moment 
of  flat  ironic  regret. 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  105 

But  the  roses  that  he  had  brought  Ellen  were  no  symbol 
but  a  real  gift.  They  satisfied  one  of  her  starvations.  She 
was  leaning  over  them  wolfishly,  and  presently  straightened 
herself  and  stared  at  a  dark  wall  and  told  how  early  one 
spring  she  had  gone  to  a  Primrose  League  picnic  ("Mother 
brought  me  up  as  a  Consairvative.  It's  been  a  great  grief  to 
her  the  way  I've  gone")  at  Melville  Castle.  There  had  been 
lilac  and  laburnums.  Lilac  and  laburnums !  She  had  evidently 
been  transported  by  those  delicate  mauve  and  yellow  silk  em- 
broideries on  the  grey  canvas  of  the  Scottish  countryside,  and 
his  roses  had  taken  her  the  same  journey  into  ecstasy,  just  as 
the  fact  of  her  had  brought  him  back  into  the  happiness  away 
from  which  he  had  been  travelling  for  years.  They  had  a 
magical  power  to  give  each  other  the  things  they  wanted. 

But  she  was  uneasy.  The  clock  had  struck  seven,  and  she 
had  seemed  perturbed  by  its  striking.  "Do  you  want  me  to 
go?"  he  asked,  with  the  frank  bad  manners  of  a  man  who  is 
making  love  in  a  hurry. 

"Och,  no !"  she  answered  reluctantly,  "but  there's  the  shop- 
ping." 

"Can't  I  come  and  carry  the  things  for  you?" 

She  brought  her  hands  together  with  a  happy  movement 
that  at  the  last  instant  she  checked.  But  indeed  she  was  very 
glad.  For  nowadays  if  anybody  was  unkind,  and  on  Saturday 
nights  people  were  tired  and  busy  and  altogether  disposed  to 
be  unkind,  she  immediately  noted  it  as  fresh  evidence  that 
there  did  indeed  exist  that  human  conspiracy  of  malevolence 
in  which  the  sudden  unprovoked  unceasing  cruelty  of  Mr. 
Philip  had  made  her  believe.  But  if  the  client  from  Rio  were 
with  her,  things  would  not  happen  perversely  and  she  would 
not  think  dark  thoughts.  "That'll  be  fine.  You'll  make  a  grand 
jumentum." 

"Ju ?" 

"Jumentum,  jumenti,  neuter,  second.  A  beast  of  burden. 
It's  a  word  that  Caesar  was  much  addicted  to." 

When  she  came  in  again  from  the  hall  he  saw  with  delight 
that  she  had  put  on  her  hat  and  coat  in  the  dark,  and,  though 
she  went  to  the  mantelpiece,  it  was  not  to  revise  the  rough  draft 
of  her  dressing  at  the  glass,  but  to  fish  some  money  out  of  a 


106  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

ginger- jar.  She  brought  the  coins  over  to  the  table  and  began 
to  arrange  them  in  little  heaps,  evidently  making  some  calcu- 
lation concerning  the  domestic  finance,  while  her  face  assumed 
a  curious  expression  of  contemptuous  thrift.  It  was  as  if 
she  was  making  her  reckoning  with  scrupulous  accuracy  and 
at  the  same  time  ridiculing  her  own  penury  and  promising  her- 
self that  there  would  come  a  time  when  she  should  make  cal- 
culations concerning  the  treasures  of  emperors.  She  was  de- 
luding herself  with  dreams  of  the  time  when  she  should  have 
crowned  herself  queen  or  made  herself  the  hidden  tyrant- 
saviour  of  an  industry.  He  detested  her  ambition:  he  felt  it 
to  be  a  kind  of  spiritual  adultery ;  he  moved  his  clenched  hand 
forward  on  the  table  till  it  almost  touched  her  money.  Im- 
mediately she  ceased  to  add,  slowly  her  gaze  travelled  from  his 
fingers  to  his  face,  and  she  smiled  a  disturbed  smile  that  ex- 
press"ed  at  first  the  greeting  that  one  beautiful  animal  gives  to 
another,  and  then  poetic  wonder  at  his  beauty,  and  then  happi- 
ness because  they  liked  each  other  so,  and  at  last  it  became  a 
sheer  grimace  of  courage  because  the  happiness  was  turning 
into  a  slight  physical  misery  because  there  was  something  she 
ought  to  do  or  say,  and  she  did  not  know  what  it  was.  And 
he  was  smiling  too,  because  he  perfectly  knew  what  she  did  not. 
One  of  the  candles  had  burnt  to  its  socket,  and  at  its  gut- 
tering arms  of  shadow  seemed  to  whirl  about  them,  and  at 
its  death  the  darkness  seemed  to  bend  forward  from  the  cor- 
ners of  the  room  and  press  them  closer  to  each  other.  Very 
soon  she  would  be  in  his  arms,  and  there  would  be  an  exquisite, 
exciting  contrast  between  the  rough  texture  of  the  coat  that 
his  hands  would  grasp  and  the  smooth  skin  that  his  lips  would 
meet.  But  there  would  not.  The  passion  that  possessed  him 
was  so  strong  that  it  killed  sensation.  He  desired  her  body 
ardently,  but  only  because  it  was  inhabited  by  her  soul,  for 
their  flesh  had  become  unreal.  He  felt  an  exaltation,  an  illu- 
sion that  he  was  being  interpenetrated  with  light,  and  the  love- 
liness that  he  had  thought  of  as  Ellen  seemed  now  only  a  richly 
coloured  film  blown  round  the  fact  of  her.  If  he  wanted  to 
hold  her  close  to  him  it  was  only  that  he  might  shatter  these 
frail  substances  with  a  harsh  embrace  and  let  their  liberated 
souls  stream  out  like  comets'  hair.  There  followed  a  moment 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  107 

when  wisdom  seemed  to  crackle  like  a  lit  fire  in  his  head.  The 
plan  of  the  universe  lay  set  out  among  the  coins  on  the  table, 
and  he  looked  down  on  it  and  said,  "Of  course !"  But  imme- 
diately he  had  forgotten  why  he  had  said  it.  The  world  was 
the  same  again.  And  Ellen  was  sitting  there  on  the  other  side 
of  the  table,  and  she  seemed  very  real. 

She  murmured  petulantly,  "I  can't  remember  a  thing  mother 
said.  ...  I  can't  remember  what  I've  got  to  buy,"  and  swept 
the  money  into  her  pocket.  She  was  fatigued  and  blinded,  as 
though  all  day  she  had  watched  a  procession  of  burnished 
armies  passing  in  strong  sunlight.  "Let's  go  on,"  she  said, 
and  while  he  found  his  hat  and  coat  in  the  lobby  she  went  and 
stood  in  the  garden,  ringing  her  heels  on  the  cold  stone  of  the 
path,  drinking  in  the  iced  air,  abandoning  herself  to  the  chill 
of  the  evening  as  if  it  were  a  refuge  from  him. 

But  they  were  happy  almost  at  once.  Like  all  clever  adoles- 
cents, she  had  a  mind  like  a  rag-bag  full  of  scraps  of  silks  and 
satins  and  calicoes  and  old  bits  of  ribbon  which  was  constantly 
bursting  and  scattering  a  trail  of  allusions  that  were  irrelevant 
to  the  occasion  of  their  appearance,  and  so  when  he  came  to 
her  side  she  began  talking  about  George  Borrow.  Didn't  he 
love  "Lavengro,"  him  being  a  traveller  ?  And  had  he  ever  seen 
a  prize-fight?  Oh,  Yaverland  had.  He  had  even  had  the 
privilege  of  crossing  the  Atlantic  in  the  cattleboat  ss.  Glory 
with  Jim  Corraway,  since  known  to  fame  as  Cardiff  Jim.  But 
he  broke  it  to  her  that  now  many  of  the  best  boxers  were  Jew 
lads  from  the  East  End  of  London,  and  not  a  few  came  from 
the  special  schools  for  the  feeble-minded;  feeble-mindedness 
often  gave  a  man  the  uncloudable  temper  that  makes  a  good 
boxer. 

So,  chattering  like  that,  they  came  to  the  business  of  shop- 
ping. It  was,  he  thought,  an  extravagantly  charming  business. 
As  well  as  any  other  place  on  earth  did  he  like  this  homely 
street,  with  its  little  low  shops  that  sent  into  the  frosty  air 
savoury  smells  of  what  they  sold,  and  took  the  chill  off  the 
moonlight  with  their  yellow  gas-jets.  He  liked  its  narrow" 
pavements  thronged  with  shaggy  terrier-like  people  who 
walked  briskly  on  short  legs ;  he  liked  its  cobbled  roadway, 
along  which  passed  at  intervals  tramcars  that  lumbered  along 


108  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

more  slowly  than  any  other  trams  in  the  world,  with  an  air 
of  dignity  which  intimated  that  their  slowness  was  due  to  no 
mechanical  defect,  but  to  a  sagacity  which  was  aware  that 
in  this  simple  town  nobody  was  doing  anything  more  urgent 
than  going  home  to  supper. 

It  seemed  a  courageous  little  city  as  it  lay  at  the  base  of 
the  towering  black  and  silver  Northern  night :  a  brave  kindling 
of  comfort  in  the  midst  of  the  indifferent  universe.  And 
Ellen's  shopping  manner,  her  east  wind  descent  on  salesmen, 
showed  that  she  participated  in  the  hardy  quality  of  her  sur- 
roundings. In  the  first  shop  she  was  still  too  mtfch  aware  of 
him  to  get  into  her  stride.  It  was  a  bakery — such  a  marvel- 
lously stocked  bakery  as  could  be  found  only  in  the  land  of 
that  resourceful  people,  which,  finding  itself  too  poor  to  have 
bread  and  circuses,  set  about  to  make  a  circus  of  its  bread. 
She  bought  a  shepherd's  bap,  its  pale  smooth  crust  velvety  with 
white  flour,  and  an  iced  cake  that  any  other  nation  would  have 
thought  prodigious  save  for  a  wedding  or  a  christening,  while 
she  smiled  deprecatingly  at  him,  as  though  she  felt  these  were 
mawkish  foods  to  be  buying  in  the  company  of  a  friend  of 
bruisers.  But  in  the  butcher's  shop  the  Saturday  night  fever 
seized  her,  and  presently  Yaverland,  who  had  been  staring  at 
a  bullock's  carcase  and  liking  the  lovely  springing  arch  of  the 
ribs,  was  startled  to  hear  her  cry,  "Mr.  Lawson,  you  surprise 
me !"  But  it  was  only  the  price  of  a  piece  of  a  neck  of  mutton 
that  had  surprised  her.  After  that  he  listened  to  the  conver- 
sation that  passed  between  her  and  the  shopmen,  and  found 
it  as  different  from  the  bland  English  chatter  of  such  occasions 
as  if  it  had  been  in  a  different  tongue.  It  had  the  tweedy  tex- 
ture of  Scotch  talk,  the  characteristic  lack  of  suavity  and  rich- 
ness in  sense,  in  casual  informativeness,  in  appositeness.  Here, 
it  was  plain,  was  a  people  almost  demoniac  with  immense,  un- 
sensual,  intellectual  energy. 

In  the  grocer's  shop  they  had  to  wait  their  turn  to  be  served. 
^Ellen  put  in  the  time  staring  up  at  a  Peter's  milk  chocolate 
advertisement  that  hung  on  the  wall,  a  yodelling  sort  of  land- 
scape showing  a  mountain  like  a  vanilla  ice  running  down  into 
a  lake  of  Reckitt's  blue ;  she  was  under  the  illusion  that  it  was 
superb  because  it  was  a  foreign  place.  Yaverland  watched  the 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  109 

silver-haired  grocer  slicing  breakfast  sausage,  for  Ellen  had 
told  him  that  this  was  one  of  the  city  fathers,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  that  there  was  something  noble  about  the  old  man  in  his 
white  apron  which  reminded  one  of  his  civic  dignity.  Doubt- 
less, however,  in  his  civic  robes  he  would  remind  one  that  he 
was  a  grocer,  for  it  was  the  note  of  Edinburgh,  of  all  lowland 
Scotland,  to  rise  out  of  ordinary  life  to  a  more  than  ordinary 
magnificence,  and  then  to  qualify  that  magnificence  by  some 
cynical  allusion  to  ordinary  life.  The  old  man  seemed  to  like 
Ellen,  though  she  was  very  rude  about  his  ham  and  said,  "If 
that's  the  best,  then  times  have  been  hard  for  the  pigs  lately." 
Yaverland  gave  to  their  bickering  amenities  an  attention  that 
dwelt  not  so  much  on  the  words  as  the  twanging,  gibing  intona- 
tions. But  after  they  got  into  the  streets  again  a  question  and 
answer  began  to  tease  his  mind :  "Would  you  be  wanting  your 
change  in  halfpence,  Miss  Melville?" 

"Och,  no,  thank  you,  Mr.  Lindsay." 

They  had  come  to  the  end  of  Ellen's  shopping  list  and  she 
was  taking  him  home  through  St.  Patrick's  Square.  "Look  at 
that  lighted  window,  where  they've  got  a  blue  blind!  That's 
where  de  Quincey  stopped!"  she  said  excitedly,  and  he  an- 
swered, "Oh,  is  it?  ...  I  say,  why  did  the  old  chap  offer  to 
give  you  change  in  halfpence?" 

"Well,  to-morrow's  Sunday,  you  see." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't.  I'm  stupid.  Why  do  you  want  half- 
pence more  on  Sunday  than  on  any  other  day?" 

"Why,  for  the  plate.  For  the  collection.  In  church.  But 
we  always  put  in  threepenny-bits.  Mother's  picked  up  a  lot 
of  English  ways.  What's  taken  you?"  She  stared  up  in 
wonder  at  his  laughter,  until  it  broke  on  her  that  she  had  un- 
wittingly given  him,  an  Englishman,  food  for  the  silly  English 
taunt  that  the  Scotch  are  mean.  "Och,  you  don't  understand," 
she  began  to  stammer  hastily.  "I  didn't  mean  that  exactly." 

And  then  a  hot  rage  came  on  her.  Why  should  she  make 
excuses  for  her  own  people,  because  this  stranger  who  was  less 
than  nothing  to  her  chose  to  giggle  ?  Wasn't  he  using  his  size, 
which  was  sheer  luck,  his  experiences  in  foreign  lands,  of  which 
she  was  bitterly  jealous,  and  his  maleness,  which  until  she  got 
a  vote  was  a  ground  for  hostility,  to  "come  it  over"  her  ?  She 


110  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


said  acidly,  "I'm  glad  you're  amused.  I  suppose  you  don't 
do  such  things  in  England?"  and  at  his  laughing  answer,  "I 
don't  know;  I've  never  been  to  Church  in  England.  But  I 
shouldn't  think  so,"  her  neatly-brushed  and  braided  temper 
came  down.  She  came  to  a  sudden  stop.  They  were  on  the 
unfrequented  pavement  of  Buccleuch  Place,  a  street  of  tall 
houses  separated  by  so  insanely  wide  a  cobbled  roadway  that 
it  had  none  of  the  human,  close-pressed  quality  of  a  street,  but 
was  desolate  with  the  natural  desolation  of  a  ravine,  and  under 
these  windowed  cliffs  she  danced  with  rage,  a  tiny  figure  of 
fury  with  a  paper-bag  flapping  from  each  hand  like  a  pendu- 
lous boxing-glove,  while  he  stood  in  front  of  her  in  a  humble, 
pinioned  attitude,  keeping  his  elbows  close  to  his  side  lest  he 
should  drop  any  parcels. 

He  loved  every  word  of  it,  from  the  moment  she  explosively 
told  him  that  it  was  all  very  well  to  hee-haw  up  there  like  a 
doited  giraffe,  and  his  mind  felt  the  same  pleasure  that  the 
palate  gets  out  of  a  good  curry  as  she  told  him  that  the  English 
were  a  miserable,  decadent  people  who  were  held  together  only 
by  the  genius  and  application  of  the  Scotch,  that  English  in- 
dustry was  dependent  for  its  existence  on  Scotch  engineers, 
and  that  English  education  consisted  solely  of  Univairsities 
that  were  no  more  than  genteel  athletic  clubs,  and  begged  him 
to  consider  the  implication  of  the  fact  that  the  Scotch,  though 
a  smaller  people  than  the  English,  had  defended  a  larger 
country.  .  .  . 

He  woke  up  at  that.  He  had  been  tranced  in  a  pleasant 
reverie,  for  though  she  was  angry  he  knew  that  she  would  not 
get  too  angry.  She  was  running  away  from  him,  but  in  a  circle. 

"Scotland  bigger  than  England !"  he  jeered.  "Think  of  the 
map!  Bigger  than  England!" 

She  thought  of  the  map,  and  for  a  minute  her  mouth  was  a 
little  round  dismayed  hole.  But  she  was  not  to  be  beaten. 
"I  was  alluding  to  its  surface,"  she  said  coldly.  "It  being  such 
an  elevated  country,  there  must  be  many  square  miles  standing 
practically  on  end,  thus  taking  hardly  any  space  on  the  map. 
Consequently  I  was  correct  in  saying  that  Scotland  is  bigger 
than  England."  She  drew  breath  to  go  on,  but  her  lips  began 
to  twitch  and  her  eyes  to  seek  his  half-ashamedly,  and  then 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  111 

she  began  to  giggle  at  her  own  sophistry  and  was  not  angry 
when  he  joined  her.  They  built  a  little  bright  vibrant  cave  in 
the  night  with  their  laughter,  from  which  they  did  not  wish 
to  move.  They  were  standing  quite  still  on  the  broad  pave- 
ment, staring  intently  at  each  other's  faces,  trying  to  remem- 
ber the  reality  under  the  distortions  painted  by  the  strong 
moonlight.  It  was  a  precious  moment  of  intimacy,  and  they 
did  not  quite  know  what  to  do  with  it.  They  did  not  even 
know  whether  to  be  grave  or  gay.  It  was  as  if  they  held  be- 
tween them  a  sheet  of  shot  tissue  and  could  not  decide  whether 
to  hold  it  up  to  the  light  and  show  its  merry  rosy  colour  or  let 
it  sag  and  glow  rich  gold. 

But  indeed  they  had  no  choice.  For  he  found  himself  saying 
huskily,  "I  didn't  mean  to  be  rude.  I  had  forgotten  you  were 
Scotch.  You're  a  person  all  by  yourself.  One  doesn't  think 
of  you  as  belonging  to  any  country." 

"Well,  of  course,"  she  murmured,  "father  was  Irish ;  but  he 
was  just  an  expense." 

He  choked  back  a  laugh.  But  this  sense  that  she  was  funny 
did  not  blur  the  romantic  quality  of  his  love  for  her  any  more 
than  this  last  manifestation  of  her  funniness  spoiled  the  clear 
beauty  of  her  face,  which  now,  in  this  moonlight  that  painted 
black  shadows  under  her  high  cheek-bones,  was  candid  and 
alert  like  the  face  of  a  narcissus.  "I  didn't  mean  to  be  rude," 
he  repeated.  "I  didn't  think  that  what  I  said  could  possibly 
touch  you.  As  if  I  could  say  anything  about  you  that  wasn't 
.  .  ."  His  voice  cracked  like  a  boy's.  He  felt  an  agony  of  ten- 
derness towards  her,  and  a  terrifying  sense  that  love  was  not 
all  delight.  It  was  stripping  him  of  the  armour  of  hardness 
and  self-possession  that  it  had  been  the  business  of  his  adult 
years  to  acquire,  and  it  was  leaving  him  the  raw  and  smarting 
substance,  accessible  and  attractive  to  pain,  that  he  had  not 
been  since  he  was  a  boy. 

And  it  was  all  to  no  purpose.  For  nothing  seemed  more 
likely  than  that  Ellen  should  look  up  at  him  fixedly  and  fully 
assume  that  expression  of  wisdom  which  sometimes  intruded 
into  the  youth  in  her  eyes ;  that  she  should  say  in  a  new  deep 
voice,  "You  are  not  good  enough  for  me."  And  of  course  it 
would  be  true,  it  would  be  true.  Then  she  would  walk  on  and 


112  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

turn  the  corner  to  her  home,  and  he  would  be  left  alone  among 
these  desolats  tall  houses,  eternally  hungry.  He  could  imagine 
how  she  would  look  as  she  turned  the  corner,  the  forward  slant 
of  her  body,  the  upward  tilt  of  her  head,  the  awful  irrevocable 
quality  of  her  movements,  the  ghostlike  glamour  the  moon- 
light would  lay  on  her  as  if  to  warn  him  that  she  was  as  sep- 
arate from  him  as  though  she  were  dead.  He  would  not  be 
able  to  pursue  her,  for  there  was  something  about  her  which 
would  prevent  him  from  ever  trying  on  her  those  ordinary  com- 
pulsions which  men  are  accustomed  to  apply  to  women ;  quiet, 
menacing  devotion,  or  persistent  roaring  importunities,  or  those 
forcible  embraces,  of  which  he  thought  with  the  disgust  he 
now  felt  for  the  sexual  processes  of  everybody  in  the  world 
except  himself  and  Ellen,  which  induce  the  body  to  betray  the 
reluctant  mind.  Because  he  loved  her  he  was  obliged,  in  spite 
of  himself,  to  acknowledge  the  sacredness  of  her  will,  even 
though  that  acknowledgement  might  frustrate  every  hope  of 
his  love.  He  greatly  disliked  that  obligation. 

She  was  abstractedly  murmuring  defensive  things  about  the 
Scotch.  "And  Scotland  is  such  a  lovely  place.  Even  round 
here.  Dalmeny.  Cramond  Brig.  Hawthornden.  And  oh, 
the  Pentlands !  Have  you  not  been  to  the  Pentlands  yet  ?  Oh, 
but  they're  the  grandest  place  in  the  world.  There  are  lochs 
hidden  behind  the  range  the  way  you'd  never  think.  And 
waterfalls.  The  water  comes  down  red  with  the  peat.  And 
miles  and  miles  of  heather." 

"Take  me  there,  Ellen." 

"Would  you  like  to  come?  Let's  go  next  Saturday.  I've 
got  the  whole  day  off.  Mr.  James  said  it  was  my  due,  what 
with  the  overtime  I've  been  doing.  It'll  be  lovely.  I've  had 
nobody  to  go  with  since  Rachael  Wing  went  to  London.  But 
would  you  truly  care  to  come?  It's  just  moors.  You'll  not 
turn  up  your  nose  at  it?" 

"Anywhere  I  went  with  you  I'd  like." 

She  started  and  began  to  walk  on.  It  was  as  if  the  sheet  of 
tissue  had  grown  too  heavy  for  her  young  hand  and  she  had 
dropped  it.  Although  he  went  on  talking  about  how  much  he 
liked  Scotland,  and  how  intelligent  he  found  the  workmen 
at  the  cordite  factory  at  Broxburn,  she  hardly  answered,  but 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  113 

moved  her  head  from  side  to  side  like  a  horse  galled  by  its 
collar.  Had  he  thought  her  a  bold  girl,  fixing  up  a  walk  with 
him  so  eagerly?  And  ought  he  to  have  called  her  by  her 
Christian  name?  Of  course  he  was  so  much  older  that  per- 
haps he  felt  that  he  had  a  right  to  do  it.  When  they  passed 
through  the  arch  into  Hume  Park  Square  she  saw  a  light  in 
the  dining-room  window  and  said,  "Mother's  home  before 
us." 

She  did  not  know  that  in  that  minute  she  had  decided  the 
course  of  her  life.  For  she  did  not  know  that  just  before  she 
spoke  she  had  sighed,  and  that  Yaverland  had  heard  her  and 
perceived  that  she  sighed  because  soon  they  would  no  longer 
be  alone  together.  Perhaps  something  like  fear  would  have 
come  upon  her  if  she  had  known  how  immense  he  felt  with 
victory ;  how  he  contemplated  her  willingness  to  love  him  in  a 
passion  of  timeless  wonder,  watching  her  journey  from  heaven, 
stepping  from  star  to  star,  all  the  way  down  the  dark  whirling 
earth  of  his  heart;  and  how  even  while  he  felt  a  solemn  agony 
at  his  unworthiness  he  was  busily  contriving  their  immediate 
marriage.  For  there  was  a  steely  quality  about  his  love  that 
would  have  been  more  appropriate  to  some  vindictive  purpose. 

It  was  apparent  to  him,  when  they  went  in,  that  Mrs.  Mel- 
ville understood  what  was  going  on,  for  she  threw  him  a  glance 
which  was  not  quite  a  wink  but  which  clearly  suggested  that 
had  she  been  just  a  common  body  it  was  conceivable  that  she 
might  have  winked.  As  soon  as  they  were  alone  he  told  her 
that  he  loved  Ellen,  that  he  wanted  to  marry  her,  that  he  had 
plenty  of  money,  that  he  was  all  right,  that  they  must  marry 
at  once.  She  did  not  seem  to  regard  him  as  asking  her  per- 
mission, though  he  had  tried  to  give  his  demand  that  flavour, 
but  rather  as  acquainting  her  with  an  established  fact  at  which 
she  blinked  in  a  curious  confusion  of  moods.  The  demoniac 
music  in  the  dancing-hall  had  begun  to  bludgeon  the  walls, 
and  in  the  whirlpool  of  the  physical  vibrations  of  the  noise  and 
the  spiritual  vibrations  of  his  passion  the  little  woman  seemed 
to  bob  like  a  cork.  She  was  resigned  and  pleased,  and  plainly 
trusted  him,  but  at  the  same  time  she  was  pitifully  alarmed. 
"Mercy  me !  you've  not  been  long.  .  .  .  Well,  you've  caught  a 
Tartar  and  no  mistake.  Never  say  I  didn't  warn  you.  .  .  . 


THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

But  you'll  let  the  bairn  bide  for  a  wee  bit  longer!    She's  but 
a  bairn !" 

It  was  as  if  she  quite  saw  that  a  husband  was  necessary  for 
Ellen,  and  wanted  her  to  have  one,  and  at  the  same  time  be- 
lieved that  any  husband  would  inevitably  bring  her  pain.  He 
set  it  down  as  one  of  the  despondent  misinterpretations  of 
life  that  the  old  invent  in  the  depression  of  their  physical 
malaise,  and  answered,  reassuringly,  insincerely,  "Yes,  yes,  I'll 
wait.  .  .  ."  But  why  should  they  wait?  They  were  going  to 
be  radiantly  and  eternally  happy.  It  might  as  well  begin  at 
once, 


in 

"Is  it  not  beautiful?  Is  it  not  just  beautiful?"  cried  Ellen. 
And  indeed  at  last  it  was  beautiful,  and  warranted  that  ex- 
cited gait,  that  hopping  from  leg  to  leg  and  puppy ish  kicking 
up  of  dead  leaves  with  which  she  had  come  along  the  road 
from  Balerno  station.  It  had  seemed  to  Yaverland  an  undis- 
tinguished pocket  of  the  country,  and  there  had  been  nothing 
that  caught  his  attention  save  the  wreck  of  a  ropeworks  close 
by  the  village,  which  had  been  gutted  by  fire  two  or  three 
nights  before  and  now  stood  with  that  Jane  Cakebread  look 
that  burned  buildings  have  by  daylight,  its  white  walls  blotched 
like  a  drunkard's  skin  with  the  smoke  and  water,  and  its 
charred  timbers  sticking  out  under  the  ruins  of  the  upper 
storey  like  unkempt  hair  under  a  bonnet  worn  awry.  There 
were  men  working  among  the  wreckage,  directing  each  other 
with  guttural  disparaging  cries,  moving  efficiently  yet  slowly, 
as  if  the  direness  of  the  damage  had  made  them  lose  all  heart. 
Ellen  stopped  to  watch  them,  laying  her  neck  over  the  top  plank 
of  the  fence  as  a  foal  might  do ;  there  was  nothing  that  did  not 
interest  her.  But  after  that  it  had  seemed  a  very  ordinary 
green-and-grey  piece  of  Scotland,  and  he  thought  tenderly  of 
her  love  of  it  as  one  of  those  happy  delusions  that  come  to  the 
very  young,  who  see  the  world  suffused  with  beauty  even  as  a 
person  who  looks  out  of  half-opened  eyes  sees  everything 
fringed  with  prismatic  hues. 

But  the  road  had  lifted,  a  wildness  had  come  on  the  hedge; 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  115 

where  there  had  been  bushes  were  slim  wind-distorted  trees, 
and  when  the  wall  of  the  trim  little  estate  on  the  right  came  to 
an  end  they  stood  suddenly  in  face  of  a  broad  view.  To  the 
right  of  the  white  road  that  drove  forward  was  a  wide  moor 
of  dark  moss-hags,  flung  like  a  crumpled  cloth  on  a  slope  that 
stretched  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see  to  the  base  of  black  hills 
about  which  clambered  white  mists.  To  the  left  were  green 
fields,  set  with  tentative  assemblies  of  firs,  which  finally,  where 
the  road  dipped,  drew  together  in  a  long  dark  wood.  These 
things  were  a  delicate  frieze  in  front  of  a  range  of  hills  that 
rolled  eastwards,  the  colour  of  clouds  and  almost  as  formless 
as  clouds,  yet  carving  such  proud  lines  against  the  sky  that 
they  seemed  to  be  crouched  in  attitudes  of  pride  and  for  all 
their  low  height  had  the  austere  and  magnificent  quality  of 
mountains.  This  was  a  country  he  could  like  very  well. 
Against  its  immensity  human  life  appeared  as  unimportant  as 
he  did  not  doubt  that  it  was  in  those  periods  when  his  own 
private  affairs  were  not  pressing,  and  it  gave  him  such  a  sense 
of  the  personality  of  inanimate  things  as  he  had  very  rarely 
had  except  at  sea.  The  fir  copse  by  which  they  stood  showed 
as  much  character  as  any  ship  in  her  behaviour  under  the 
weather,  and  these  mountains  and  this  moor  showed  by  a  sud- 
den pale  glow  of  response  to  a  Jacob's  ladder  of  sunlight  that 
they  changed  in  mood  under  changing  skies  even  as  the  seas. 
Two  or  three  whaups  rose  from  the  moss-hags  and  then  sailed 
pee-weeting  towards  the  hills,  as  if  despatched  by  the  moor 
to  warn  them  of  the  coming  of  these  strangers ;  and  it  was  as 
if  the  range  answered  shortly,  "Ay,  I  ken  that,  I  ken  that." 
The  broad  view  was  as  solemn  as  eternity,  and  at  the  same  time 
there  was  a  dancing  exhilaration  in  the  air,  which,  when  it 
was  still,  was  sweet-flavoured  with  the  sweetness  of  the  firs 
and  the  bog-myrtle,  and  when  it  was  disturbed  by  the  diamond- 
hard  wind  was  ice-cold  and  seemed  to  intoxicate  the  skin. 
There  was  a  sound  of  wheels  behind  them,  and  they  stepped 
aside  to  let  a  carriage  pass  down  a  track  that  turned  aside  from 
the  road  at  this  point  and  ran  timorously  between  the  moor 
and  the  white  wall  of  the  neat  estate.  In  it  sat  an  old  lady,  so 
very  old  that  the  flesh  on  the  hand  that  was  raised  to  her  bon- 
net was  a  mere  ivory  web  between  the  metacarpal  bones,  and 


116  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

her  eyes  had  gone  back  to  that  indeterminate  hue  which  is  seen 
in  the  eyes  of  a  new-born  baby ;  but  she  sat  up  straight  in  the 
open  carriage  and  directed  on  the  two  strangers  a  keen  be- 
littling gaze  that  without  doubt  extracted  everything  essential 
in  their  appearance.  He  liked  this  harsh  country,  these  harsh, 
infrangible  people  that  it  bred. 

"Do  you  not  think  it's  rather  fine  ?"  asked  Ellen,  in  so  small 
and  flat  a  voice  that  he  perceived  she  was  afraid  that  the  climax 
she  had  worked  up  to  hadn't  come  off  and  that  he  was  sneer- 
ing at  her  Pentlands.  It  seemed  a  little  surprising  to  him 
that  she  didn't  know  what  was  in  his  mind  without  being  told, 
and  he  hastened  to  tell  her  he  thought  it  was  glorious.  The 
anxiety  lifted  from  her  face  at  that,  and  she  gazed  at  the  hills 
with  such  an  exultant  fixity  that  he  was  able  to  stare  at  her 
at  his  ease.  She  was  looking  very  Scotch,  and  like  a  small 
boy,  for  her  velvet  tam-o'-shanter  was  stuck  down  on  her 
head  and  she  wore  a  muffler  that  nearly  touched  her  rather  pink 
little  nose.  Her  jacket  was  too  big  for  her  and  her  skirt  very 
short,  showing  her  slender  legs  rising  out  of  large  cobbler- 
botched  nailed  boots  like  plant-stems  rising  out  of  flower-pots, 
and  these  extreme  sartorial  disproportions  gave  her  a  sort  of 
"father's  waistcoat"  look.  Yet  at  a  change  of  the  wind,  at  the 
slightest  alteration  of  the  calm  content  of  their  relationship, 
she  would  disclose  herself  indubitably  romantic  as  the  sickle 
moon,  as  music  heard  at  dusk  in  a  garden  of  red  roses.  He 
supposed  that  to  every  man  of  his  horse-power  there  ultimately 
came  a  Juliet,  but  none  but  him  in  the  whole  world  had  a 
Juliet  of  so  many  merry  disguises.  He  looked  at  the  range 
and  thought  that  somewhere  behind  them  was  the  spot  where 
he  would  tell  her  that  he  loved  her.  It  gave  him  a  foolish 
pleasure  to  imagine  what  manner  of  place  it  would  be — 
whether  there  would  be  grass  or  heather  underfoot  and  if  the 
hill-birds  would  cry  there  also. 

"Well,  it's  no  use  you  and  me  seeing  which  of  us  can  gape 
the  longest  if  we  mean  to  get  to  Glencorse  before  the  light 
goes,"  said  Ellen.  "We'd  best  step  forward.  I'm  glad  you 
like  the  place.  I  love  it.  And  this  bit  of  the  road's  bonny. 
When  Rachael  Wing  and  I  were  stopping  up  in  the  plough- 
man's cottage  at  Kirktown  over  by  Glencorse  Pond  we  got  up 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  117 

one  day  at  sunrise  and  came  over  here  before  the  stroke  of 
four.  And  if  you'll  believe  it,  the  road  was  thick  with  rabbits, 
running  about  as  bold  as  brass  and  behaving  as  sensibly  as 
Christians.  The  poor  things  ran  like  the  wind  when  they  saw 
us.  I  wish  we  could  have  explained  we  meant  no  harm,  for 
I  suppose  it's  the  one  time  in  the  day  when  they  count  on 
having  the  world  to  themselves." 

"I've  felt  like  that  about  a  jaguar,"  he  said,  "Came  on  it 
suddenly,  on  a  clearing  by  a  railway  camp  on  the  Leopoldina. 
It  had  been  tidying  up  a  monkey  and  was  going  home  a  bit 
stupid  and  sleepy.  Lord,  the  sick  fright  in  its  eyes  when  it 
saw  me.  I'd  have  given  anything  to  be  able  to  stand  it  a 
drink  and  offer  to  see  it  home." 

"Och !"  she  murmured  abashed.  "Me  talking  about  rabbits, 
and  you  accustomed  to  jaguars.  I  suppose  you  never  take 
notice  of  a  rabbit  except  to  look  down  your  nose  at  it.  But 
we  can't  rise  to  jaguars  in  Scotland.  But  I  once  saw  a  red 
deer  running  in  the  woods  at  Taynuilt." 

"I've  seen  a  red  deer  too,"  he  said,  "when  I  was  motor- 
cycling up  to  Ross  this  summer."  It  flashed  across  his  mind 
then  as  it  had  flashed  across  the  road  then,  and  a  thought  came 
to  him  which  he  felt  shy  to  speak,  and  then  said  quickly  and 
caught  in  his  breath  at  the  end,  "The  sunset  was  on  it.  It 
looked  the  colour  of  your  hair." 

"Well,  if  it  did,"  she  cried  with  sudden  petulance,  "pity  me, 
that  has  to  carry  on  a  human  head  what  looks  natural  on  a 
wild  beast's  back.  Och,  come  along!  Let's  run.  I  like  run- 
ning. I'm  cold.  There's  a  bonny  bridge  where  the  road  dips, 
over  the  tail  of  Thriepmuir.  Let's  run."  And  for  a  hundred 
yards  or  so  she  ran  like  the  red  deer  by  his  side,  and  then 
stopped  for  some  reason  that  was  not  lack  of  breath.  "I 
don't  like  this,"  she  said  half  laughingly.  "I've  a  poor  envious 
nature.  I'm  used  to  running  everybody  else  off  their  feet, 
and  here  you're  holding  back  to  keep  with  me.  I  feel  I'm 
being  an  object  of  condescension.  We'll  walk,  if  you  please." 

Yaverland  said,  "Oh,  what  nonsense!  I  was  just  thinking 
how  rippingly  you  ran." 

"Havers !"  she  replied.  "You  were  thinking  nothing  of  the 
sort.  You  were  wondering  what  for  I  carried  an  iron-mon- 


118  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

ger's  shop  in  my  pocket.  But  yon  rattling's  just  a  tin  with 
some  coconuts  I've  in  it  that  I  made  last  night  and  slipped  in 
in  case  you'd  like  it,  rubbing  up  against  my  protractor." 

"But  why  in  Heaven's  name,"  Yaverland  asked,  "do  you 
carry  a  protractor  about  with  you?" 

"Off  and  on  I  try  and  keep  up  my  Euclid  and  do  a  rider 
over  my  lunch,  and  I  just  keep  a  protractor  handy." 

Yaverland  stopped.  "Ellen,"  he  said,  "I  haven't  known 
you  very  long."  There  was  the  faintest  knitting  of  her  brows, 
and  he  added  evenly,  "I  may  call  you  Ellen,  mayn't  I?  This 
modern  comradeship  between  men  and  women  .  .  ."  "Och, 
yes,"  beamed  Ellen,  fascinated  by  the  talismanic  catchword, 
and  he  felt  a  little  ashamed  because  he  had  used  one  of  her 
pure  enthusiasms  for  his  own  purposes.  Sometimes  he  was 
conscious  of  a  detestable  adroitness  in  his  relations  with 
women ;  it  was  not  respectful ;  it  was  half-brother  to  the  car- 
neying  art  of  the  seducer,  but  he  could  not  take  back  the  in- 
sincerity. "As  I  say,  I  haven't  known  you  very  long.  But 
may  I  ask  you  a  favour  ?" 

"Surely,"  said  Ellen. 

"Turn  out  your  pockets." 

"But  why?" 

"I  want  to  see  what's  in  'em." 

"Well,"  said  Ellen  resignedly,  "there  are  worse  vices  than 
inquisitiveness.  Both  pockets?" 

"We'll  start  with  the  one  with  the  coconut  ice  and  the  pro- 
tractor, please." 

"It's  too  cold  to  sit  by  the  roadside  and  sort  them,  so  you'll 
have  to  take  them  from  me  as  I  get  them  out.  Well,  there's 
the  protractor,  and  there's  the  coconut  ice.  Have  a  bit?  Ah, 
well,  I  notice  that  grown-up — that  people  older  than  me  don't 
seem  to  care  for  sweeties  before  their  dinner.  I  wonder  why. 
And  there's  a  magnetic  compass  I  picked  up  on  George  the 
Fourth  Bridge.  There's  a  kind  of  pleasure  in  rinding  the 
north,  don't  you  think?  And — fancy  this  being  here!  I 
thought  I'd  lost  it  long  ago.  It's  a  wee  garnet  I  found  on 
the  beach  at  Elie.  I  was  set  up  all  the  afternoon  with  finding 
a  precious  stone.  I  would  like  fine  to  be  a  miner  in  the  precious 
stone  mines  in  Mexico.  If  I  was  a  boy  I  would  go.  And  the 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  119 

rest's  just  papers.  Here's  notes  on  a  Geographical  Society  lec- 
ture on  the  geology  of  Yellowstone  Park  I  went  to  last  spring. 
Very  instructive  it  was.  And  here's  a  diagram  I  did  when  I 
was  working  for  the  Bible  examination  on  the  Second  Book 
of  Kings — the  lines  of  the  House  of  Israel  and  the  House  of 
Judah  drawn  to  scale  on  square  paper,  five  years  to  a  square 
and  set  parallel  so  that  you  can  see  which  buddy  was  ruling 
on  the  one  throne  when  another  buddy  was  on  the  other.  I 
came  out  fifth  in  all  Scotland.  And  this  is  a  poem  I  wrote. 
It's  not  a  good  poem.  The  subject  was  excellent — reflections 
of  an  absinthe-drinker  condemned  to  death  for  the  murder  of 
his  mistress — but  I  couldn't  give  it  the  treatment  it  desairved. 
No,  you  will  nut  see  it.  I'll  just  tear  it  up.  There.  It'll  do  the 
whaups  no  harm  scattering  over  the  moor,  for  they've  no 
aesthetic  sensibilities.  But  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  you  had, 
though  I've  heard  that  the  English  don't  care  much  for  art. 
I'm  not  much  good  at  the  poetry,  but  I  have  the  grace  to  know 
it,  and  so  I've  just  given  it  up.  I  make  my  own  blouses, 
though  I  know  I  can't  equal  the  professional  product  that's 
sold  in  the  shops,  because  it  comes  cheaper.  But  with  the 
Carnegie  library  handing  out  the  professional  product  for 
nothing,  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  write  my  own  poems. 
That's  all  in  this  pocket.  But  I  think  there's  more  in  the  other. 
Oh,  mercy,  there's  nothing  at  all  except  this  pair  of  woollen 
gloves  I  had  forgotten.  Not  another  thing.  And  no  wonder. 
There's  a  hole  in  it  the  size  of  an  egg.  Now,  if  that  isn't 
vexatious.  I  had  some  real  nice  things  in  that  pocket.  A 
wee  ammonite,  I  remember.  Och,  well,  it  can't  be  helped. 
I'm  afraid  you've  seen  nothing  very  thrilling  after  all." 

"Oh  yes,  I  have,"  said  Yaverland. 

"Indeed  you've  not.  Yet  certainly  you're  looking  tickled 
to  death.  No  wonder  Scotch  comedians  have  such  a  success 
when  they  go  among  the  English  if  they're  all  as  easily  amused 
as  you." 

"Your  pockets  are  like  a  boy's,"  he  said.  "In  a  way,  you're 
awfully  like  a  boy." 

"I  wish  I  was,"  she  answered  bitterly.  "But  I'm  a  girl, 
and  I've  nothing  before  me.  No  going  to  sea  for  me  as  there 
was  for  you."  But  they  were  nearly  at  the  bridge  now,  and 


120  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

she  was  changed  to  a  gay  child  because  she  loved  this  spot. 
She  ran  forward,  crying,  "Is  it  not  beautiful?  Look,  you 
didn't  think  there  was  this  grand  loch  stretching  away  there ! 
And  look  how  the  firs  stand  at  the  water's  edge.  The  day 
Rachael  and  I  came  there  was  a  clump  of  bell-heather  just 
on  that  point  of  rock.  A  bonny  pinky  red  it  was.  And  look 
how  Bavelaw  Avenue  marches  up  the  hill !  Is  it  not  just 
fine?" 

Her  moment  of  desperate  complaint  had  not  moved  him 
at  all,  nor  did  he  perceive  that  her  joy  at  the  beauty  of  the 
place  was  more  intense  than  anything  a  happy  person  would 
have  felt,  that  her  loud  laughter  bore  as  bitter  a  history  of 
wretchedness  as  a  starving  man's  grunt  over  a  crust.  He 
was  not  convinced  that  these  sudden  darkenings  of  her  eyes 
and  voice,  and  her  flights*  from  these  moments  into  the  first 
opportunity  of  gaiety,  represented  any  real  contest  with  pain. 
Life  must  be  lovely  and  amusing  for  such  a  lovely  and  amus- 
ing person.  These  were  but  youth's  moody  fandangoes.  He 
could  look  on  them  as  calmly  as  on  the  soaring  and  swooping 
of  a  white  sea-bird.  So  he  stood  on  the  bridge,  leaving  her 
soul  to  its  own  devices  while  he  appreciated  the  view.  Surely 
this  country  was  not  real,  but  an  imagination  of  Ellen's  mind. 
It  was  so  like  her.  It  was  beautiful  and  solitary  even  as  she 
was.  The  loch  that  stretched  north-east  from  the  narrow  neck 
of  water  under  the  bridge  was  fretted  to  a  majesty  of  rage 
by  the  winds  that  blew  from  the  black  hills  around  it;  but 
it  ended  in  a  dam  that  was  pierced  in  the  middle  with  some 
metallic  spider's  web  of  engineering;  even  so  would  romantic 
and  utilitarian  Ellen  have  designed  a  loch.  And  the  firs  which 
formed  a  glade  of  gloom  by  the  waterside,  which  by  their 
soughing  uttered  the  very  song  of  melancholy's  soul,  were  cut 
by  the  twirling  wind  into  shapes  like  quips ;  that  too  was  like 
Ellen.  And  this  magnificent  avenue  that  began  on  the  other 
side  of  the  bridge,  and  solemnly  ascended  the  hillside  as  if  to 
a  towered  palace  that  certainly  was  not  there,  was  not  unfit 
walking  for  the  princess  that  had  no  king  for  father. 

But  as  the  wonder  of  the  place  became  familiar,  that  fever 
of  discomfort  which  had  been  vexing  Ellen  all  that  day  re- 
turned. There  was,  she  felt,  some  remedy  for  it  quite  close 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  121 

at  hand ;  but  she  did  not  know  what  it  could  be.  If  she  leapt 
from  a  height  she  might  lift  this  curious  burden  from  her 
heart.  She  scrambled  up  on  the  stone  parapet  of  the  bridge 
and  jumped  back  to  earth;  and  he,  because  it  was  the  kind 
of  thing  a  boy  might  have  done,  took  no  notice.  But  she 
shivered  because  this  tangible  lump  of  misery  was  still  within 
her.  She  must  run  about,  or  the  beating  of  her  heart  would 
become  an  agony.  "Rachael  and  I  found  a  water-rat  under 
the  bridge,"  she  cried;  "preening  its  whiskers  it  was,  quite 
the  thing,  till  it  saw  us  and  ran  off  in  a  terrible  fuff.  Let's 
go  and  see  if  there's  one  now."  She  turned  round,  stared 
for  a  minute  at  the  south-west,  where  ill  weather  discoloured 
the  hills  like  a  bruise,  and  said  reproachfully,  "Surely  the  rain 
will  never  come  to  spoil  to-day."  To-day  was  to  be  such  a 
lovely  holiday.  And  then  she  ran  round  the  stone  spur  of 
the  bridge  and  crouched  down  beside  the  arch  on  the  damp 
turf. 

There  was  no  rat  there  now.  The  water  was  in  spate 
with  the  autumn  floods  and  the  muddy  ledge  on  which  he  had 
sat  at  his  toilette  was  an  invisible  thing  that  sent  up  a  smear 
of  weed  to  tremble  on  the  surface.  But  she  continued  to 
crouch  down  and  watch  the  burn.  Better  than  anything  in 
nature  she  loved  running  water,  and  this  was  grey  and  icy 
and  seemed  to  have  a  cold  sweet  smell,  and  she  liked  the  slight 
squeaking  noises  her  boots  made  on  the  quaggy  turf  when  she 
shifted  her  balance.  It  was  quiet  here,  and  the  gentle  colours 
of  the  soft  grey  sky,  the  stern  grey  stream,  the  amber  grasses 
that  shook  perpetually  in  the  stream's  violence,  and  the  black 
stripped  hawthorns  that  humped  at  the  water's  border  made  a 
medicine  for  her  eyes,  which  had  begun  to  ache. 

There  was  always  peace  on  the  Pentlands.  And  such  bonny 
things  happened  every  minute.  A  bough  of  silver  birch  came 
floating  along,  doubtless  a  windfall  from  one  of  those  trees 
that  stood  where  Thriepmuir  was  but  the  Bavelaw  burn,  a 
furtive  trickle  among  the  moss-hags,  a  brown  rushy  confusion 
between  two  moors.  It  was  as  bright  as  any  flower  with  its 
yellow  leaves,  and  as  fine  as  filigree;  and  its  preservation  of 
this  brightness  and  fineness  through  all  the  angry  river's 
tumbling  gave  it  an  air  of  brave  integrity.  She  watched  it 


122  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


benignly,  and  peered  beneath  the  bridge  to  see  if  it  would  have 
the  clear  course  it  deserved,  and  a  kind  of  despair  fell  on  her 
as  she  saw  that  it  would  not.  The  ill-will  that  creeps  about  the 
world  is  vigilant;  many  are  the  branches  that  fall  from  the 
silver  birch  in  autumn,  and  not  one  of  them  is  forgotten  by  it. 
Doubtless  the  very  leaves  on  the  bough  are  numbered,  lest 
one  should  sail  bravely  to  the  loch  and  make  a  good  end.  So 
there,  where  the  shadow  lay  thickest  under  the  arch,  was  a 
patch  of  still  black  water,  confined  in  stagnancy  by  a  sunk 
log  on  which  alluvial  mud  had  made  a  garden  of  whitish 
grasses  like  the  beard  of  an  unclean  old  man.  The  impact  of 
the  unchecked  floods  that  rushed  past  made  this  black  patch 
shake  perpetually,  and  this  irregular  motion  gave  it  a  sort 
of  personality.  It  suggested  a  dark  man  shaking  with  a  sup- 
pressed passion  of  malice.  It  was  like  Mr.  Philip.  From  some 
submerged  rottenness  caught  in  the  log  bubbles  slowly  floated 
up  through  the  dark  water,  wavered  a  little  under  the  glassy 
surface,  and  then  popped  up  and  made  a  dirty  trail  of  spume. 
That  was  like  the  way  Mr.  Philip  sat  in  the  dark  corner  be- 
yond the  fireplace  and  showed  by  the  way  the  whites  of  his 
eyes  turned  about  that  something  bad  had  come  into  his  mind, 
and  let  a  space  of  silence  fall  so  that  one  thought  he  was  not 
going  to  say  it  after  all,  and  then  it  would  come  out  suddenly, 
cool  and  as  mean  as  mean  could  be  and  somehow  unanswerable. 
With  a  twingeing  hope  that  it  would  not  be  so,  she  watched 
the  silver  birch  branch  hesitate,  yield  to  the  under-ebb,  and  lie 
at  last  helpless  on  the  black  stagnancy,  which  continued  to 
vibrate  with  an  air  of  malice.  Soon  its  pretty  leaves  were 
waterlogged,  and  it  sank  down  to  bed  with  the  grassy  rotten- 
ness beside  the  whitish  grasses.  It  had  had  no  chance,  any 
more  than  she  herself  had  when  Mr.  Philip  contrived  that  al- 
though she  should  run  away  from  him  all  day,  there  would 
come  a  time  when  they  stood  face  to  face  in  the  little  room 
where  no  one  came,  and  stared  and  drawled  until  she  said 
the  silly  bairn-like  thing  that  gave  him  the  chance  to  make  a 
fool  of  her.  It  was  all  right  to  be  here  on  the  Pentlands  en- 
joying herself,  but  on  Monday  she  would  have  to  go  back  and 
work  under  Mr.  Philip.  She  could  not  go  on  like  this.  She 
would  have  to  kill  herself.  She  would  jump  over  the  Dean 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  123 

Bridge.  Mother  would  just  have  to  go  and  live  with  Aunt 
Bessie  at  Bournemouth. 

Yaverland  spoke  behind  her,  indolently,  because  he  felt  he 
had  all  the  rest  of  his  life  to  be  happy  with  her.  "Where's  this 
Rachael  Wing  you  talk  about?  Aren't  you  still  pals?" 

Ellen  swallowed  her  unshed  tears.  "  'Deed,  yes,"  she  said, 
"but  she's  gone  to  London  to  be  an  actress.  I  wish  I  knew 
how  she  was  getting  on.  She's  never  written  since  the  first 
month." 

"Probably  she's  having  hard  luck." 

"Not  Rachael.  She's  not  like  me.  I  always  was  a  poor 
creature  beside  her.  Anybody  could  see  that  Rachael  had  a 
wonderful  life  before  her.  She's  not  a  bit  like  me." 

"But  that's  just  what  you  look  like." 

"Havers!"  she  said  dully.  "And  me  so  pairfectly  miser- 
able !"  As  soon  as  the  words  were  out  of  her  mouth  she  was 
frozen  with  horror.  In  the  presence  of  one  who  was  both  a 
man  and  English  she  had  admitted  the  disgraceful  fact  that 
she  was  not  an  imperial  creature  insolent  with  success  and  well 
pleased  with  the  earth  her  footstool.  She  scrambled  to  her 
feet  and  ran  coltishly  past  him  and  over  the  bridge,  hiding 
her  face  and  calling  gaily,  "Come  on !  I  want  to  get  up  on  the 
hills !"  And  he  followed  slowly,  thinking  pretty  things  about 
her. 

When  he  drew  abreast  of  her  she  had  pulled  off  her  tam-o'- 
shanter  and  taken  out  her  hairpins,  and  her  hair  was  blowing 
sideways  across  her  breast  and  back.  "It's  good  to  feel  the 
wind  through  one's  hair,"  she  said.  "I  wish  I  had  short  hair 
like  a  man's." 

"Why  don't  you  cut  yours  off  then?" 

"I  somehow  feel  it  would  be  a  shame  when  I  have  such  a 
deal  of  it,"  she  answered  innocently,  and  fell  to  chattering  of 
the  Spanish  military  nun  that  de  Quincey  wrote  about.  She 
had  passed  herself  off  as  a  man  all  right.  Did  he  think  a  girl 
could  go  the  length  of  that  anywhere  nowadays  ?  No  ?  Surely 
there  was  somewhere?  Oh,  she  was  a  child,  a  little  child,  and 
it  was  not  fair  to  talk  to  her  of  love  for  a  little  while  yet.  It 
might  be  dangerous,  for  he  had  heard  that  sometimes,  when  a 
girl  was  sought  by  men  too  soon,  her  girlhood  tried  to  hold  her 


124  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

back  from  womanhood  by  raising  obscure  terrors  that  might 
last  as  long  as  life.  He  would  wait  until  she  was  eighteen. 
Yet  when  the  avenue  bent  at  right  angles  half  up  the  hillside, 
and  they  drew  together  as  an  army  of  winds  marched  down 
upon  them  from  the  mountains,  she  looked  at  him  through  her 
scattered  hair,  and  her  face  was  wholly  a  woman's.  So  might 
a  woman  smile  who  was  drowning  under  a  deep  tide  and  loved 
to  drown  so ;  yet  from  a  brave  wisdom  in  her  eyes  it  could  be 
seen  that  she  was  abandoning  herself  not  to  death  but  to  life. 
This,  beyond  all  doubt,  was  adult  love,  though  she  herself  was 
not  aware  of  it.  He  had  only  to  admit  it  by  some  significant 
speech  or  act,  to  rise  spiritually  to  the  occasion,  and  they  would 
be  fused  together  as  perpetual  lovers. 

He  was  conscious  again  as  he  had  been  when  she  sat  with 
the  coins  before  her  in  the  little  dining-room  in  Hume  Park 
Square,  of  an  involuntary  austerity  in  his  passion  which, 
while  he  did  not  see  the  sense  of  it,  he  recognised  to  be  the 
authentic  note  of  love.  A  moment  ago,  when  she  still  seemed 
a  child,  he  had  been  thinking  what  fun  it  would  be  to  kiss 
her  suddenly  on  the  very  tip  of  that  pink  little  nose  which 
moved  when  she  talked  as  a  rabbit's  does  when  it  eats,  to  lay 
hold  of  her  hands  roughly  and  see  how  far  those  ink-stained 
fingers,  still  pliable  as  children's  are,  would  bend  back  towards 
her  wrist.  But  now  that  she  was  a  woman  the  passion  between 
them  was  so  strong  that  the  delight  of  touching  her  beloved 
flesh  would  have  been  too  great  for  human  nerves  to  support, 
and  it  would  have  turned  to  pain.  The  mutual  knowledge 
that  they  loved  would  be  enough  to  work  as  many  miracles 
on  the  visible  and  invisible  world  as  either  of  their  hearts 
could  stand.  '"I  love  you,"  was  what  he  had  to  say.  .  .  . 

It  was  the  strangest  thing  in  the  world  that  he  could  not 
say  it.  He  could  not  even  make  a  kind  movement  of  his  body, 
a  protective  slackening  of  his  step  and  overhanging  of  her 
spindrift  delicacy  with  his  great  height,  that  might  have  inti- 
mated to  her  that  they  were  dear  friends.  He  found  himself 
walking  woodenly  a  pace  away  from  her,  and  though  his 
soul  shouted  something  hidden  round  the  corner  of  his  mind, 
it  would  not  let  his  lips  articulate  the  desperate  cry.  He  stared 
at  the  passing  moment  as  a  castaway,  gagged,  and  bound  to  a 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  125 

raft  of  pirates,  might  wake  from  a  delirious  sleep,  stare  dumbly 
up  at  the  steep  side  of  a  galleon  that  rides  slowly,  and  know 
that  with  it  rides  away  his  chance  of  life  because  he  cannot 
speak.  Love  of  this  girl  meant  infinite  joy  and  a  relief  such 
as  nothing  before  had  ever  promised  him  from  the  black  regi- 
ment of  moods  that  had  for  long  beleaguered  him,  self-hatred, 
doubt  of  the  value  of  any  work  on  this  damned  earth,  a  recur- 
rent tendency  to  brood  on  his  mother's  wrongs  until  he  was  a 
little  mad ;  and  if  he  did  not  win  her  life  would  be  more  tor- 
menting in  its  patent  purposelessness  than  even  he,  with  his 
immense  capacity  for  abstract  rage,  had  ever  known.  And 
yet  it  was  utterly  beyond  him  to  speak  the  necessary  words. 
And  the  army  of  winds  passed  down  to  the  plains  and  there 
was  stillness,  the  trunks  of  the  trees  ceased  to  groan  and  the 
dead  leaves  did  not  race  among  their  feet,  and  she  shook  back 
her  hair  and  was  no  longer  a  woman.  She  leaned  towards  him 
and  spoke  rapidly,  reverting  to  the  subject  of  women  soldiers, 
and  unquestionably  the  spirit  of  childhood  lodged  upon  her  lips. 

Granted  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  future  life,  though, 
mind  you,  she  found  the  evidence  in  support  of  it  miserably 
weak,  did  he  not  think  that  the  canonisation  of  Joan  of  Arc 
must  have  been  a  terrible  smack  in  the  face  for  St.  Paul? 
He  made  himself  forget  in  laughter  the  priceless  moment  that 
had  passed,  and  he  told  himself,  as  sternly  as  once  in  South 
America  he  had  had  to  tell  himself  that  he  must  stop  drinking, 
that  her  mother  had  been  right,  and  he  must  not  make  love  to 
her  because  she  was  too  young. 

There  was  a  curious  colour  of  relief  about  this  decision,  and 
it  was  with  a  kind  of  gusto  that  he  kept  repeating  it  to  himself 
all  the  long  way  that  spread  about  before  them  after  they 
passed  Bavelaw  Castle,  the  whitewashed  farmhouse  that  was 
the  anti-clfmax  of  the  avenue.  Two  servant-girls  were  laying 
clothes  on  a  bleaching-green  within  its  dykes,  the  one  taking 
them  down  from  a  clothes-line,  the  other  laying  them  down 
on  the  grass,  and  they  were  exchanging  cries  that  seemed  at 
that  distance  wordless  expressions  of  simple  being  like  the 
calls  of  the  whaups  that  circled  above  them.  Here  was  a 
district  remote  from  all  human  complexity,  in  which  it  was 
very  sweet  to  walk  with  this  young  girl. 


126  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ON* 

The  road  stopped,  for  this  was  no  place  where  the  market- 
ing gig  could  spin  along  to  any  business,  and  two  grassy  tracks 
went  forward,  both  marked  by  bare,  uninscribed  posts,  as  if 
they  led  to  destinations  too  unvisited  to  need  a  name.  The 
one  they,  did  not  take  climbed  over  the  grey  shoulder  of  the 
range,  and  the  other  brought  them  into  an  eastward  valley, 
where  there  was  for  the  moment  no  wind  and  a  serenity  that 
was  surely  perpetual.  The  cries  of  the  hill-birds  did  but  drill 
little  holes  in  the  clear  hemisphere  of  silence  that  lay  over  this 
place.  The  slopes  on  either  side,  thickly  covered  with  mats 
of  heather  and  bristling  mountain  herbage,  and  yet  lean  and 
rocky,  were  like  the  furry  sides  of  emaciated  animals,  and  up 
above  bare  black  summits  confronted  the  sky.  It  was  the 
extremity  of  bleak  beauty.  And,  unafraid  of  the  grimness, 
Ellen  ran  on  ahead,  her  arms  crooked  back  funnily  because 
she  had  her  hands  in  her  pocket  to  keep  the  coconut-ice  tin 
from  rattling  against  the  protractor,  her  red  hair  streaming  a 
yard  behind.  He  absorbed  the  sight  of  her  so  greedily  that  it 
immediately  seemed  as  if  it  were  a  recollected  sight  over  which 
he  had  pondered  and  felt  tenderness  for  many  years,  and  he 
wondered  if  perhaps  he  had  seen  someone  like  her  before. 
But  of  course  he  never  had.  There  was  no  one  in  the  world 
like  her. 

"Listen,  we're  coming  to  the  waterfall!  Do  you  not  hear 
it !"  she  cried  back  to  him ;  and  they  listened  together,  smiling 
because  it  was  such  fun  to  do  anything  together,  to  the  risping, 
whistling  sound  of  a  wind-blown  waterfall.  "It  comes  down 
peat-red,"  she  told  him  gloatingly,  and  with  an  air  of  showing 
off  a  private  treasure  she  led  him  to  the  grey  fold  in  the  hills 
where  the  Logan  Burn  tumbled  down  a  spiral  staircase  of  dark 
polished  rock.  She  ran  about  the  pools  at  its  feet,  crying  that 
this  wee  one  was  red  as  rust,  that  this  big  one  was  red  as  a 
red  rose — was  it  not,  if  you  looked  in  the  very  middle?  But 
suddenly  she  looked  up  into  his  face  and  asked,  "You'll  have 
seen  grand  waterfalls  out  in  Brazil?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "but  I  like  this  as  well,  and  I  would  rather 
be  here  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world." 

"Tell  me  the  names  of  some  of  the  big  waterfalls,"  she 
insisted,  uninterested  in  the  loving  things  that  he  had  said. 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  127 

"Well,  the  falls  of  Paulo  Affonso  are  pretty  good." 

"Paulo  Affonso!"  she  repeated,  her  face  avaricious  with 
the  desire  for  adventure,  "I  will  go  there  some  day.  .  .  ." 

That  she  should  feel  so  intensely  about  something  which  did 
not  concern  himself  roused  his  jealousy,  and  he  set  himself  to 
interrupt  her  train  of  thought  by  saying  boisterously,  "This  is 
a  ripping  place!  What's  it  like  above  the  fall?  Let's  climb 
it."  He  strolled  closer  to  the  waterfall  to  see  if  there  was  an 
easy  way  up  the  rock,  but  was  recalled  by  a  ready,  embar- 
rassed murmur  from  her. 

"I  can't.  .  .  ." 

He  imagined  she  was  moved  by  shame  at  his  greater 
strength,  as  she  had  been  when  they  ran  together,  and  he  said 
encouragingly : 

"Why  not?    You've  got  nailed  boots." 

But  she  continued  to  stand  stiffly  on  a  rock  by  the  edge  of 
the  red  pool,  and  stared  over  his  head  at  the  spray  and  re- 
peated, "I  can't." 

He  wondered  from  her  blush  if  in  his  ignorance  of  girls  he 
had  done  something  to  offend  her,  and  turned  away;  but  she 
misunderstood  that,  and  cried  fierily: 

"Och,  I'm  not  feared!  I've  done  it  twenty  times.  But  I 
took  a  vow.  Oh,"  she  faltered,  suddenly  the  youngest  of  all 
articulate  things,  "you'll  laugh  at  me!" 

"I  won't!"  he  answered  fiercely  and  gripped  one  of  her 
hands. 

"It  was  like  this,"  she  said,  looking  round-eyed  and  dewily 
solemn  like  a  child  in  church.  "Climbing  up  there  used  to  be 
a  great  pleasure  to  me.  I  used  to  come  here  a  lot  with  Rachael 
Wing.  And  then  I  heard  Victor  Gray  son  speak — oh,  he  is  a 
wonderful  man ;  he  seemed  hardly  airthly ;  you  felt  you  had  to 
make  some  sacrifice.  I  made  a  vow  I'd  never  climb  it  again  till 
I  had  done  something  for  the  social  revolution.  And  I've  not 
done  a  thing  yet." 

They  exchanged  a  long,  confiding  look,  a  mutual  pressure 
of  their  souls;  but  before  he  could  say  something  reverently 
sympathetic  she  had  uttered  a  sharp  exclamation,  and  was 
looking  past  him  at  the  waterfall,  which  a  sudden  gust  of  wind 
had  blown  out  from  the  rock  like  a  lady's  skirt.  "If  we  were 


128  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

climbing  that  now,  yon  spray  would  be  on  our  faces,  and  I 
love  the  prick  of  cold  water !"  she  burst  out.  "Whatever  for 
did  I  make  that  daft-like  vow?  A  lot  of  good  it's  like  to  do 
the  social  revolution !  I  really  am  a  fool  sometimes !" 

Was  there  ever  such  a  child,  Yaverland  asked  himself 
triumphantly,  as  if  he  had  proved  a  disputed  point.  He  per- 
suaded himself  that  the  exquisite  exhibition  of  her  personality 
which  delighted  him  all  through  the  meal  they  presently  shared 
on  the  rock  beside  this  red  pool  was  vouchsafed  to  him  only 
because  he  had  been  wise  enough  not  to  treat  her  as  a  woman. 
She  was  as  spontaneous  as  a  little  squirrel  that  plays  un- 
watched  in  the  early  morning  at  the  fringe  of  the  wood.  There 
was  no  movement  of  her  beautiful  bright-coloured  person,  no 
upward  or  downward  singing  of  her  soft  Scotch  voice,  that 
did  not  precisely  express  some  real  action  of  her  soul.  But 
if  he  had  spoken  only  one  word  of  love  it  would  not  have  been 
so.  She  would  have  blurred  her  clear  gestures  by  traditional 
languors,  she  would  have  kept  her  mind  busy  draping  her 
with  the  graces  expected  of  a  courted  maiden  instead  of  let- 
ting it  run  enquiringly  about  the  marvels  of  the  earth;  for 
the  old  wives  and  the  artists  have  been  so  busy  with  this  sub- 
ject of  love  that  they  have  made  a  figure  of  the  lover,  and  the 
young  woman  who  finds  herself  a  bride  can  no  more  behave 
naturally  than  a  young  man  who  finds  himself  a  poet.  Oh,  he 
was  doing  the  sensible  thing.  There  was  no  day  in  his  life 
which  he  was  more  certain  that  he  had  spent  wisely  than  this 
which  he  dawdled  away  playing  with  Ellen  as  a  little  boy  might 
play  with  a  little  girl,  on  the  edge  of  the  two  lochs  to  which 
this  glen  led.  By  the  first,  a  dull  enough  stretch  of  water 
had  it  not  been  for  its  name,  which  she  loved  and  made  him 
love  by  repeating  it,  "Loganlee,  Loganlee."  She  made  him 
go  on  ahead  for  a  few  yards  and  then  ran  to  him,  clapping  her 
hands,  because  he  had  come  to  a  halt  on  the  bridge  that  spanned 
a  little  tributary  to  the  loch. 

"There,  I  knew  you'd  stop!  There's  no  stranger  ever  gets 
across  this  bridge  without  stopping  and  looking  over.  They 
call  it  the  Lazy  Brig.  The  old  folk  say  it's  because  there's 
a  fairy  sitting  by  the  burn,  a  gossiping  buddy  who  casts  a 
spell  on  strangers  so  that  he  can  have  a  good  look  at  them 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  129 

and  talk  about  them  afterwards  to  the  other  fairies."  But  at 
the  second  loch,  Glencorse  Pond,  she  nearly  quarrelled  with 
him,  though  she  was  pleased  with  his  evident  awe  at  the  place. 
Here  black  wild  hills  ran  down  to  a  half-moon  of  wind-fretted 
water,  near  a  mile  long,  and  dark  trees  stood  on  its  banks 
with  such  a  propriety  of  desolate  beauty  that  it  seemed  as  if 
it  must  be  a  conscious  work  of  art ;  one  could  believe  that  the 
scene  had  been  wrought  by  some  winged  artist  divine  enough 
to  mould  mountains  yet  possessed  by  an  ecstasy  of  human 
grief.  There  was  a  little  island  on  the  loch,  a  knoll  of  sward 
so  thickly  set  with  tall  swaying  firs  that  from  this  distance 
it  looked  like  a  bunch  of  draggled  crow's  feathers  set  in  the 
water,  and  from  this  there  ran  to  the  northern  shore  a  broad 
stone  causeway,  so  useless  that  it  provoked  the  imagination 
and  made  the  mind's  eye  see  a  string  of  hatchet-faced  men, 
wrapped  in  cloaks  and  swinging  lanthorns,  passing  that  way 
at  midnight.  It  was,  Ellen  said,  a  reservoir;  but  it  was  no- 
ordinary  reservoir,  for  under  its  waters  lay  an  ancient  chapel 
and  its  graveyard. 

"Mrs.  Bonar,  the  ploughman's  wife  who  lives  in  the  cottage 
up  yonder  on  Bell's  Hill — do  you  see  it? — told  me  she'd  often 
seen  the  ghosts  rising  up  through  the  water  at  night.  And  I 
said  to  her,  That's  most  interesting.  And  what  do  the  ghosts 
look  like?'  'Och,  the  very  dead  spit  of  thon  incandescent 
mantles  my  daughter  has  in  her  wee  flat  in  Edinburgh.'  Was 
that  not  a  fine  way  for  a  ghost  to  look?" 

He  laughed  at  that,  but  presently  laughed  at  a  private  jest 
of  his  own,  and  so  fell  into  disgrace.  For  in  answer  to  her 
enquiring  gaze  he  said,  "A  reservoir  with  a  churchyard  at 
the  bottom  of  it.  I  wondered  what  cocktail  Edinburgh  took 
to  keep  itself  so  gay."  To  his  surprise,  tears  came  into  her 
eyes.  "Oh,  you  English!"  she  snapped.  "Cackling  at  the 
Scotch  is  your  one  accomplishment." 

But  they  soon  made  friends.  The  skies  intervened  to  patch 
it  up  between  them,  for  presently  there  broke  out  a  huge  windy 
conflagration  of  a  sunset,  which  was  itself  so  fine  a  scarlet 
show  and  wrought  such  magical  changes  on  the  common  colour 
of  things  that  she  had  constantly  to  call  his  attention  by  little 
intimate  cries  and  tuggings  at  the  sleeve.  This  was  not  soft 


130  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

summer  glow,  no  liquefaction  of  tints;  but  the  world  became 
mineral  as  they  looked.  The  field  by  the  road  was  changed 
from  a  dull  winter  green  to  a  greenish  copper;  the  bramble 
bushes  cast  long  steel-blue  shadows,  and  their  scarlet  and  pur- 
ple leaves  looked  like  snips  of  painted  tin;  and  the  Glencorse 
Burn  on  the  other  side  of  the  field  was  overhung  by  bare  trees 
of  gold.  Every  window  of  the  farmhouse  across  the  valley 
was  a  loophole  of  flame;  and  here  it  was  evident,  from  the 
passing  of  a  multitude  of  figures  about  the  farm  buildings  and 
a  babblement  that  drove  in  gusts  across  the  valley,  there  was 
happening  some  event  that  matched  the  prodigiousness  of  the 
strange  appearance  lent  it  by  the  sunset. 

"There's  an  awful  argy-bargying  at  Little  Vantage,"  said 
Ellen,  "I  wonder  what's  going  on." 

When  they  crossed  over  the  burn  and  turned  into  the  road 
that  led  back  to  the  farmhouse  they  found  the  dykes  plastered 
with  intimations  of  a  sale  of  live  stock.  "Ah,  it's  a  roup! 
Old  Mr.  Gumley  must  be  dead,  poor  soul!"  And  indeed  the 
road  was  lined  with  farmers'  gigs,  paint  and  brass-work  blaz- 
ing with  the  evening  light  till  they  looked  like  fiery  chariots 
that  would  presently  lift  to  heaven.  About  the  yard  gate 
there  was  a  great  press  of  hale  farmers,  gilt  and  ruddy  from 
the  sunset  they  faced,  and  vomiting  jests  at  each  other  out  of 
their  great  bearded  mouths ;  and  in  the  yard  sheep  with  golden 
fleece  and  cattle  as  bright  as  dragons  ran  hither  and  thither 
before  the  sticks  of  boys  who  looked  like  demons  with  the 
orange  glow  on  their  faces,  and  who  cursed  and  spat  to  show 
they  would  some-day  be  men.  Richard  and  Ellen  had  to  stand 
back  for  a  moment  while  a  horse  was  led  out ;  and  as  it  passed 
a  paunchy  farmer  jocularly  struck  it  between  the  eyes  and 
roared,  "Ye're  no  for  me,  ye  auld  mare,  wij  your  braw  be- 
ginnings of  the  ringbone!"  And  there  was  so  much  glee  at 
the  mention  of  deformity  in  the  thick  voice,  and  so  much  pa- 
tience in  the  movement  of  the  mare's  long  unshapely  head,  that 
the  incident  was  as  unpleasing  as  if  it  had  been  an  ill-favoured 
spinster  who  had  been  insulted.  Yaverland  was  roused  sud- 
denly by  the  tiniest  sound  of  a  whimper  from  Ellen. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked  tenderly. 

"Nothing,"   she  quivered.     "There's   something  awful  sad 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  131 

about  the  evening  sometimes.  I've  got  an  end  of  the  world 
feeling."  And  indeed  there  was  something  awesome  and  un- 
natural about  this  quiet  hour  in  which  there  was  so  much  light 
and  so  little  heat,  in  this  furnace  of  the  skies  from  which  there 
flowed  so  glacial  a  wind.  "Supposing  the  end  of  the  world 
is  like  this,"  said  Ellen,  nearly  crying.  "A  lot  of  beefy,  red- 
faced  angels  buying  us  up  and  taking  us  off  to  their  own 
places  without  a  word  to  us  of  where  we're  to  go  to,  and 
commenting  most  unfeelingly  on  all  our  failings.  .  .  ." 

"You  funny  person,"  he  murmured,  "you're  tired.  Probably 
hungry.  Where's  that  cottage  you  talked  about  where  they'll 
give  us  tea?" 

"Over  yonder,"  she  quavered,  "but  I'm  not  wanting  any 
tea." 

But  just  then  a  gig  drew  up  beside  them,  driven  by  an  old 
man  and  laden  with  a  couple  of  tin  trunks  and  a  cornucopia 
of  a  woman,  who  had  snatched  the  reins  out  of  the  old  man's 
hands.  "What's  this?  A  roup  at  Little  Vantage!  Feyther, 
what's  happened?"  The  old  man  shook  his  head.  "Feyther, 
ye  niver  ken  onything."  She  raised  a  megaphonic  voice. 
"Moggie!  Moggie  Gumley!"  A  fat  young  woman  with  a 
soap-shining  face  ran  out  of  the  farmhouse.  "Wha's  calling 
me?  Och,  it's  you,  Mistress  Cairns!"  "Ay,  it's  me.  What's 
ta'en  ye  all  here?  I've  been  awa'  for  two  months  keepin' 
hoose  for  ma  brither  Jock  while  his  wife's  been  in  the  Infirm- 
ary wi'  her  chumer.  I  didn't  think  I'd  come  back  to  find  a  roup 
at  Little  Vantage."  "So  ye've  not  haird?"  gasped  the  fat 
young  woman  delightedly.  "Feyther's  deid  o'  his  dropsy,  and 
Alec  and  me's  awa'  to  Canady  this  day  fortnight."  She  panted 
it  out  with  so  honest  a  joy  in  the  commotion,  so  innocent  a  dis- 
regard of  the  tragedy  of  death  and  emigration,  that  Yaverland 
and  Ellen  had  to  turn  away  and  laugh ;  and  he  drew  her  across 
the  road  to  the  cottage. 

The  door  was  opened  before  they  got  there.  "It's  me,  Mrs. 
Lawson!"  said  Ellen.  "Indeed,  I  kenned  that!"  replied  the 
housewife.  "I  was  keeking  out  of  the  window  when  you 
came  up  the  road,  and  I  said  to  masel',  'There's  Miss  Melville, 
and  she'll  be  wanting  her  tea,'  so  I  awa'  and  popped  the  kettle 
on.  Bring  your  gentleman  in.  He's  a  new  face,  but  he's  wel- 


132  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

come.  Ye'll  pardon  the  parlour  being  a*  of  a  reek  wi'  to- 
baccy,  but  Mr.  Laidlaw  and  Mr.  Borthwick  cam'  in  and  had 
a  cup  o'  tea  and  a  bit  of  a  crack.  They  were  both  bidding  at 
the  roup  and  some  business  thegither.  I  think  Mr.  Laidlaw 
means  to  buy  Cornhaven  off  Mr.  Borthwick  and  give  it  to  his 
son  John,  wha's  married  on  a  Glasca  girl,  a  shelpit  wee  thing 
wi'  a  Glesca  accent  like  skirling  pipes  played  by  a  drunken 
piper."  They  watched  her  while  she  set  the  table  with  tea 
and  scones  and  strawberry  jam  and  cheese,  and  smiled  rather 
vacantly  at  her  stream  of  gossip,  their  natural  liking  for  the 
woman  struggling  against  their  sense  of  the  superfluity  of 
everybody  on  earth  except  each  other.  When  she  left  them 
they  ate  and  drank  almost  without  speech,  soberly  delighted 
by  the  mellowing  of  the  world  that  followed  the  dwindling 
of  the  sunset  fires.  All  things  seemed  to  become  more  modest 
and  reconciled;  and  farmers  hawked  out  their  last  jests  at 
one  another,  mounted  their  gigs  and  drove  home;  and  the 
flocks  of  sheep  and  droves  of  cattle  pattered  by,  bleating  and 
lowing  not  so  heartrendingly. 

Ellen  rose,  went  over  to  the  mantelpiece  and  stroked  the 
china  dogs,  and  sat  down  in  an  armchair  by  the  fire.  "This 
has  been  a  lovely  day,"  she  murmured.  She  joined  her  hands 
behind  her  head  and  crossed  her  knees  and  smiled  blindishly 
into  the  shadow;  and  his  heart  turned  over  in  him.  All  his 
life  he  would  remember  her  just  as  she  was  then:  the  lovely 

«  n,     attitude  of  body  that  was  at  once  angular  and  softly  sensuous, 

like  a  blossom-laden  branch ;  the  pure  pearl  colour  of  her  skin, 

^  the  pure  bright  colours  of  her  hair  and  eyes  and  mouth ;  the 

\o  passionate  and  funny,  shrewd  and  credulous  pattern  of  her 
features;  and  that  dozing  smile,  that  looked  as  if  her  soul 
had  ceased  to  run  up  and  down  enquiringly  and  was  resting 
awhile  to  enjoy  the  sweetness  that  was  its  own  climate.  He 
would  never  forget  her  as  she  was  looking  then.  She  might 
turn  away  from  him,  she  might  get  old,  she  might  die,  but 
the  memory  of  her  as  she  was  at  that  moment  would  endure 
for  ever  in  his  heart,  an  eternally  living  thing.  He  was  aware, 
reluctantly  enough,  for  he  hated  such  mystical  knowledge,  and 
would  have  given  the  world  to  see  life  as  a  plain  round  of  dic- 
ing and  drinking  and  wenching,  that  real  love  was  somehow 


CHAPTER    III 


THE  JUDGE  133 


a  cruel  thing  for  women ;  that  the  hour  when  she  became  his 
wife  would  be  as  inimitably  tragic  as  it  would  be  illimitably 
glorious.  But  love  was  also  very  kind  to  women,  since  it 
enabled  them  to  live  always  at  their  loveliest  in  their  lover's 
memories,  there  perpetually  exempt  from  the  age  and  ugliness 
that  even  the  bravest  of  them  seemed  pitifully  to  fear. 

Yet,  of  course  love  was  not  so  kind  to  every  woman.  No 
one  remembered  his  mother  as  he  would  remember  Ellen.  He 
began  to  ponder  what  his  mother  must  have  been  like  when 
she  was  that  age,  and  it  marked  a  certain  difference  between 
him  and  other  men,  that  he  was  grudgingly  surprised  that  the 
girl  he  meant  to  marry  was  as  beautiful  as  his  mother.  Cer- 
tainly, he  reflected,  with  a  bitter,  gloating  grief,  Marion  Yaver- 
land  must  have  been  beautiful  enough  to  deserve  a  lodging  in 
some  man's  memory.  She  must  have  been  brilliantly  attrac- 
tive in  the  obvious  physical  sense  to  have  overcome  the  repul- 
sion that  her  spirit  and  wit  must  certainly  have  aroused  in  such 
a  man  as  his  father;  and  though  he  suppressed  his  earliest 
memories  of  her  because  they  introduced  that  other  who  had 
shared  his  nursery,  he  had  many  pictures  in  his  mind  which 
showed  her  brown  and  red-lipped  and  subtle  with  youth,  and 
not  the  dark,  silent  sledge-hammer  of  a  woman  that  she  had 
latterly  become. 

There  came  to  him  a  memory  of  a  distant  winter  afternoon, 
so  far  distant  that  he  could  not  have  been  more  than  four 
or  five,  when  they  had  come  back  from  doing  their  Christmas 
shopping  at  Prittlebay,  and  he  had  grizzled,  as  tired  children 
do,  at  the  steepness  of  the  hill  that  climbed  from  Roothing 
station  to  Yaverland's  End,  always  a  stiff  pull,  and  that  day 
a  brown  muck  of  trodden  snow.  She  had  looked  round  with 
her  hard  proud  stare  to  make  sure  that  nobody  was  watching 
them,  and  then  spread  out  her  crimson  cloak  and  danced  back- 
wards in  front  of  him,  and  cried  out  loving  little  gibes  at  his 
heavy  footedness,  her  own  vitality  flashing  about  her  like 
lightning.  When  she  was  younger  still,  and  had  not  wept  so 
much,  she  must  often  have  glowed  very  beautifully  under  her 
lover's  eyes.  It  was  a  pity  that  she  had  chosen  to  love  that 
thief,  who  stole  the  memories  of  her  glorious  moments  as  he 
had  stolen  her  good  repute  and  peace  of  mind,  and  crept  away 


134  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

with  the  loot  to  the  tomb  on  the  hillside  where  his  son  could 
not  pursue  him.  As  he  thought  of  the  unmitigated  quality 
of  his  mother's  lot  he  hated  other  women  for  their  cheerful 
lives ;  and  Ellen,  who  had  felt  that  his  mood  had  turned  from 
her,  and  was  watching  his  face,  said  to  herself :  "He  has  some 
trouble  that  he  is  not  telling  me.  Well,  why  should  he?  We 
are  almost  strangers."  Suddenly  she  felt  very  weak  and 
lonely,  and  put  her  hands  over  her  face. 

Mrs.  Lawson  put  her  head  round  the  door.  "You  young 
people's  letting  the  clock  run  on.  Nae  doot  ye're  douce  and 
souple  walkers,  but  if  ye  want  to  catch  the  Edinburgh  bus 
ye'll  hev  none  too  much  time." 

Yaverland  and  Ellen  both  started  forward,  and  their  eyes 
met.  "Oh,  we  must  hurry!"  she  exclaimed,  with  a  pale  dis- 
stress  that  puzzled  him  by  its  intensity.  Yet  she  made  him 
wait  while  she  pinned  up  her  hair;  and  that  almost  made  him 
suspect  her  as  a  minx,  for  she  looked  so  pretty  with  her  arms 
above  her  head  and  her  white  ringers  shuttling  in  and  out  of 
her  red  hair.  But  when  they  got  into  the  lane  outside  she  hur- 
ried towards  the  high  road  as  if  she  fled  from  something, 
catching  her  breath  sobbingly  when  the  darkness  was  so  thick 
that  she  could  not  run,  although  he  told  her  many  times  that 
there  was  no  need  for  haste.  "See,"  he  said,  as  they  took  their 
stand  at  the  cross-roads,  "the  bus  isn't  anywhere  in  sight  yet." 
But  she  did  not  answer  him,  and  he  became  aware  that  she  was 
trembling.  "Are  you  cold?  Would  you  like  my  coat?"  he 
asked,  but  she  murmured  a  little  broken  mouseish  refusal. 
Could  it  possibly  be  that  she  was  frightened  of  being  alone  with 
him  in  the  dark?  He  had  to  own  to  himself  that  she  would 
have  been  afraid  of  him  if  she  had  known  some  of  the  things 
that  he  had  done,  although  he  did  not  admit  that  her  fear 
would  be  anything  more  than  a  child's  harsh  judgment  of 
matters  it  did  not  understand.  But  no  rumours  could  have 
reached  her  ears,  for  he  had  always  lived  very  secretly,  even 
beyond  the  needs  of  discretion,  since  he  knew  that  the  passive 
sort  of  women  with  whom,  for  the  most  part,  he  had  had 
dealings  have  an  enormous  power  of  self-deception,  and  could, 
as  the  years  went  on,  if  there  were  no  witnesses  to  dispute  it, 
pretend  to  themselves  that  what  had  happened  with  him  was 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  135 

no  reality  but  only  a  naughty  dream  that  had  come  to  them 
between  sleeping  and  waking. 

It  came  to  him  like  a  feeling  of  sickness  that  it  was  not  abso- 
lutely impossible  that  those  Christians,  in  spite  of  that  personal 
ridiculousness  which  he  had  noticed  in  nearly  all  of  them,  were 
right.  It  might  be  that  sin  was  sin  and  left  a  stain,  and  that 
those  things  which  had  appeared  to  him  as  innocently  sweet 
as  a  bathe  in  a  summer  sea,  and  which  he  had  believed  to  end 
utterly  with  dawn  and  the  stealthy  shutting  of  a  door,  had 
somehow  left  him  loathsome  to  this  girl.  He  perceived  that 
there  might  have  been  a  meaning  adverse  to  him  in  the  way  she 
had  delayed,  in  despite  of  her  own  wish  to  hurry,  and  pinned 
up  her  hair.  Perhaps  she  had  seen  something  in  his  face 
which  made  her  shiver  with  apprehension  that  his  hands  might 
touch  it;  not  because  it  was  her  hair,  but  because  they  were 
his  hands  and  had  acquired  a  habit  of  fingering  women's 
beauties.  But  indeed  he  was  not  like  that.  He  sweated  with 
panic,  and  raged  silently  against  this  streak  of  materialism  in 
women  that  makes  them  so  grossly  dwell  on  the  physical  events 
in  a  man's  life.  This  agony  of  tenderness  he  felt  for  her  now, 
this  passion  of  worship  that  kept  half  his  mind  inactive  yet 
tense,  like  a  devotee  contemplating  the  altar,  was  more  real 
than  anything  he  had  ever  felt  for  those  other  women. 

The  bus  came  down  the  road  to  them  and  he  stepped  for- 
ward, shouting  and  lifting  his  stick.  But  it  swept  on,  packed 
with  soldiers  in  red  coats,  who  sent  out  into  the  darkness  be- 
hind them  a  fan  of  song.  "It's  the  soldiers  from  the  barracks 
at  Glencorse,  bother  them,"  sighed  Ellen.  "And  dear  knows 
when  there's  a  train."  She  spoke  with  such  a  flat  extremity 
of  despair  that  he  peered  at  her  through  the  darkness  and 
found  that  her  head  had  fallen  back  and  her  eyes  were  almost 
closed.  Evidently  she  had  been  overcome  by  one  of  those 
sudden  prostrations  to  which  young  people  are  liable  when 
they  have  spilt  out  their  strength  too  recklessly.  He  remem- 
bered how  once,  when  the  Gondomar  had  been  scuttling  for 
two  days  at  the  fringe  of  a  cyclone,  he  had  seen  a  cabin-boy 
lean  back  against  a  mast  and  become  suddenly  statuesque  with 
inertia,  with  such  a  queer  pinching  of  the  mouth  as  hers.  "It's 
all  right,"  he  said  comfortingly.  "There's  a  train  in  a  quarter 


136  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

of  an  hour."  She  must  have  heard  him,  for  she  began  to 
walk  towards  the  station  lights  that  twinkled  up  the  road,  but 
she  answered  in  a  tone  that  sounded  as  if  her  mind  was  inac- 
cessible with  somnolence,  "I'm  half  asleep." 

The  train  was  in  when  they  reached  the  station,  and  he  told 
her  to  take  a  seat  in  it  while  he  got  the  tickets.  But  she  did 
not.  Its  carriages  were  not  yet  lit,  and  it  looked  black  and 
cold  and  cheerless,  like  those  burned  buildings  they  had  seen 
at  Balerno;  and  anyway,  she  did  not  want  to  take  that  train. 
She  would  have  liked  to  turn  back  with  him  through  the  dark 
avenues  into  the  Pentlands.  The  sunset,  which  had  somehow 
been  as  vexing  as  it  was  beautiful,  would  by  then  have  re- 
ceded utterly  before  the  kind,  sleepy  darkness,  undisturbed 
there  in  the  valley  by  the  wee-est  cottage  light.  It  would  be 
good  to  lie  down  for  the  night  on  the  heather  of  some  ledge 
on  the  hillside  where  one  could  hear  the  Logan  Burn  talking 
as  it  ran  from  the  fall,  and  to  look  up  and  see  Mr.  Yaverland 
sitting  in  that  nice  slouching  way  he  had,  a  great  black  shape 
against  the  stars.  But  that  was  a  daft  idea.  She  was  annoyed 
for  thinking  of  anything  so  foolish,  and  when  he  came  out 
and  chid  her  for  standing  about  on  the  windy  platform  she 
found  nothing  on  her  lips  but  a  cross  murmur. 

That  did  not  really  matter,  for  one  could  not  hurt  grown-up 
people.  They  were  always  happy.  Everybody  in  the  world 
was  happy  except  her.  Without  doubt  he  would  think  her 
quite  mad  if  he  knew  that  she  was  in  the  grip  of  a  depression 
that  seemed  to  be  wringing  misery  out  of  her  body  and  brain 
as  one  wrings  water  out  of  a  bathing-dress,  so  when  they  got 
into  the  train  she  turned  away,  muttered  yawningly  that  she 
was  very  tired,  and  buried  her  face  in  the  crook  of  her  arm  so 
that  he  might  think  she  slept.  It  puzzled  her  that  she  felt  so 
disappointed.  What  had  she  expected  to  happen  to-day  that 
hadn't  happened?  Everything  had  been  lovely.  Mr.  Yaver- 
land had  talked  most  interestingly,  and  the  hills  had  been  very 
beautiful.  She  was  ashamed  of  all  those  tears  that  she  shed 
more  frequently  than  one  would  have  expected  from  an  in- 
tending rival  of  Pierpont  Morgan,  but  these  present  tears 
filled  her  with  terror  because  they  were  so  utterly  irrational. 
Irrational,  too,  was  the  sudden  picture  that  flashed  on  her 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  137 

mind's  eye  of  Mr.  Philip  sitting  in  the  opposite  corner  of  the 
carriage,  screwing  up  his  dark  face  with  mocking  laughter. 
"Mr.  Philip  is  driving  me  mad,"  she  thought  to  herself.  "Some 
day  soon  I'll  find  myself  in  Morningside  Asylum,  sticking 
flowers  in  my  hair  and  flattering  myself  I'm  Queen  Victoria. 
But  I  will  not  go  mad.  I  am  going  to  get  on.  I  am  going  to 
be  great.  But  am  I?  I  think  I  am  not."  Her  face  made  a 
wet  contorted  mask  against  her  sleeve,  and  a  swallowed  sob 
was  as  sharp  in  her  throat  as  a.  fishbone;  and  there  struck 
through  her  like  an  impaling  sword  a  certainty  which  she 
could  not  understand,  but  which  was  surely  a  certificate  that 
th/sre  was  to  be  no  more  happiness,  that  even  if  Mr.  Philip 
ceased  to  persecute  her  she  would  still  be  hungry  and  tor- 
mented. 

Perhaps  if  she  could  go  to  some  new  country  she  would 
escape  from  this  misery.  She  saw  a  sky  like  stretched  blue 
silk,  stamped  with  the  black  monograms  of  palms;  a  purple 
bay  shaped  like  a  shell  and  edged  with  a  white  embroidery  of 
surf.  Surely  such  fair  weather  killed  with  sweetness  such 
coarse  plants  as  her  stupid  gloom,  as  the  foul  weather  here 
killed  with  its  coarseness  all  sweet-flowering  southern  plants. 
She  turned  to  Yaverland  to  ask  him  if  he  could  help  her  to 
find  work  abroad,  but  she  became  aware  that  she  was  in  the 
grip  of  an  unreasonable  emotion  that  prevented  her  from  this. 
It  was  as  horrible  to  her  to  see  the  coldly  logical  apparatus  of 
her  mind  churning  out  these  irrational  conclusions  as  it  would 
have  been  for  her  to  find  her  mother  babbling  in  drunkenness ; 
and  this  feeling  that  for  Yaverland  to  know  of  her  misery 
would  be  a  culminating  humiliation  that  she  could  not  face 
seemed  disgustingly  mad.  So  she- threw  herself  into  a  black 
drowse  of  misery  unfeatured  by  specific  ideas,  until  she  be- 
gan to  think  smilingly  of  the  way  his  eyebrows  grew;  they 
were  very  thick  and  dark  and  perfectly  level  save  for  a  piratical 
twist  in  the  middle.  But  she  became  conscious  that  he  was 
standing  over  her,  and  her  heart  almost  stopped.  He  said, 
"I  think  we're  just  coming  into  Edinburgh."  There  was  no 
reason  why  she  should  feel  chilled  and  desolate  when  he  said 
that.  She  must  be  going  out  of  her  mind. 

And   he,   since   she   had   shown   by  the   simplicity   of   her 


138  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

movements  that  she  was  not  afraid  of  him,  was  quite  happy. 

He  could  see  the  picture  of  himself  sitting  beside  the  sleeping 
child  as  if  it  were  printed  in  three  colours  on  glossy  paper.  But 
he  was  a  little  troubled  lest  she  had  walked  too  far,  and  as 
they  went  up  the  stone  steps  from  the  station  to  Princes  Street 
he  bent  over  her  and  asked  in  a  tone  of  tenderness  that  he 
enjoyed  using,  "Are  you  tired?" 

"Oh,  very  tired,"  said  Ellen,  drooping  her  head,  and  aping 
a  fatigue  greater  than  anything  she  had  ever  felt  in  all  her 
young  life. 


CHAPTER  IV 


MR.  PHILIP  was  crossing  Princes  Street  when  he  saw 
them  standing  in  the  white  circle  under  the  electric 
standard  by  the  station  steps.  The  strong  light  fell  on  them 
like  a  criticism,  and  it  seemed  to  him  brazen  the  way  they 
stood  there  being  so  handsome  that  the  passers-by  turned  about 
to  stare  at  them.  Doubtless,  since  folks  were  such  fools,  they 
were  whispering  that  the  two  made  a  fine  pair.  Surely  it  was 
the  vilest  indecency  that  there,  under  his  very  eyes,  that  great 
hulking  chap  from  Rio  bent  his  head  and  spoke  to  Ellen,  and 
she  answered  him? 

"She's  standing  there  making  herself  as  conspicuous  as  if 
she  were  a  street  girl!"  he  screamed  to  himself,  and  other 
shouts  filled  his  ears,  and  he  became  aware  that  a  cursing 
driver  had  pulled  up  his  horse  a  foot  away  and  that  the  loafers 
at  the  kerb  were  lifting  jeering  cries.  He  charged  it  one  more 
offence  to  Ellen's  account  that  she  had  caused  him  to  make 
a  fool  of  himself,  and  vowed  he  would  never  think  of  her 
again,  and  ran  among  the  people  to  see  where  she  had  gone. 
Yaverland  was  leading  her  very  quickly  along  towards  the 
North  Bridge,  and  she  was  now  nothing  but  a  dark  shape  that 
might,  he  thought  with  a  glee  that  he  did  not  understand,  have 
belongea  to  some  ageing  woman  with  a  bony  body  and  a  sallow 
face.  But  then  he  saw  against  the  lit  pavement  her  narrow 
feet  treading  that  gait  that  was  like  a  grave,  slow  dance,  and 
he  realised  with  agony  that  it  was  no  use  lying  to  himself  and 
pretending  that  this  was  anybody  but  Ellen — Ellen,  who  was 
far  different  from  every  other  woman  in  the  world  and  more 
desirable.  She  slowly  turned,  as  if  her  spirit  had  felt  this  rage 
at  the  fact  of  her  running  at  her  heels,  and  wished  to  have  it 
out  with  him.  He  gripped  his  stick  and  raised  a  hand  to  hide 
his  working  mouth,  and  waited  for  the  moment  when  she 
would  see  his  face,  but  it  did  not  come. 

139 


140  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

The  man  Yaverlancl  had  put  out  his  great  ham  of  a  hand 
and  hailed  a  cab.  When  Mr.  Philip  tried  to  stop  a  cab  he 
usually  had  to  run  alongside  it,  and  often  the  driver  was  most 
impudent,  but  this  swaggering  bully  checked  the  thing  on  the 
instant,  and  handed  in  Ellen  and  drove  off  in  style  as  if  he 
was  a  duke  with  his  duchess  in  their  own  carriage.  What  did 
they  want  in  a  cab  anyway?  He  followed  the  black  trundling 
square  on  its  spidery  wheels  as  it  turned  round  by  the  Register 
House  to  cross  the  North  Bridge,  and  imagined  the  fine  carry- 
ings on  they  were  doubtless  having  in  the  dark  in  there.  He 
called  Ellen  a  name  he  had  not  thought  of  before. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done  about  it.  He  stood  for  a 
while  at  the  railing  of  that  strange  garden  of  concrete  walks 
and  raised  parterres  and  ventilating-shafts  that  lies  at  this  end 
of  Princes  Street,  built  on  the  roof  of  the  sunk  market.  Its 
rectilinear  aspect  pleased  him.  It  was  not  romantic,  the  gates 
were  locked,  and  one  could  be  sure  that  there  were  no  lovers 
trysting  there.  Presently  he  moved  along  towards  the  West 
End,  keeping  still  on  the  side  of  the  street  where  there  were  no 
men  and  girls  prancing  about  and  grinning  at  each  other  like 
dirty  apes  under  the  lights,  but  only  empty  gardens  with  locked 
gates.  What  had  those  two  been  doing?  They  had  come  in 
by  train.  Unless  they  had  travelled  a  very  long  journey  it 
must  have  been  dark  before  they  started.  They  had  been  in 
the  country  alone  together  when  it  was  quite  dark.  There 
came  to  him  memories  of  sounds  he  had  once  heard  when 
walking  through  a  twilit  wood,  the  crackling  of  twigs,  a  little 
happy  cry  of  distress,  and  again  the  crackling  of  twigs ;  he  had 
been  compelled  by  something,  which  was  not  specially  in  him 
but  was  a  part  of  the  damned  way  life  went,  to  stand  and 
listen,  though  he  knew  it  was  not  decent.  He  saw  before  him 
Ellen's  face  lying  white  on  her  spilt  red  hair,  and  it  added  to 
his  anguish  that  he  could  not  see  it  clearly,  but  had  to  peer  at 
this  enraging  vision  because  he  could  not  make  out  what  her 
expression  would  be.  He  had  seen  her  look  a  thousand  ways 
during  these  last  few  weeks  when  she  had  kept  on  drawing  his 
attention  to  her  with  her  simpering  girl's  tricks,  but  he  could 
not  imagine  how  she  would  look  then.  It  seemed  as  if  she  were 
defying  his  imagination  as  she  defied  him  every  day  in  the 


iv  THE  JUDGE  141 

office,  and  he  turned  his  mind  away  from  the  matter  in  a  frenzy, 
but  began  soon  to  wonder  what  those  two  had  been  doing. 
They  had  come  in  by  train.  Unless  they  had  travelled  a  very 
long  journey  it  must  have  been  dark  before  they  started.  .  .  . 

He  knew  he  must  not  go  on  like  this,  and  looked  round  him. 
1  le  had  passed  the  classic  portico  of  the  Art  Gallery  and  was 
walking  now  by  the  wilder  section  of  the  gardens,  where  the 
street  lights  shone  back  from  the  shining  leaves  of  bushes  and 
made  them  look  like  glazed  paper,  and  with  their  glare  made 
the  trees  behind  seem  such  flat  canvas  trees  as  they  set  about 
the  stage  at  theatres  when  there  is  need  for  a  romantic  glade 
for  a  lovers'  meeting.  How  often  had  Ellen  met  Yaver- 
land? 

He  ran  across  the  road.  It  would  be  better  among  the 
people.  It  was  not  so  bad  if  you  did  not  watch  them  and  see 
how  happy  they  were.  Everybody  in  the  world  was  happy 
except  him.  No  doubt  Ellen  and  her  Yaverland  were  just 
bursting  with  merriment  in  that  cab.  Would  they  be  at  home 
yet?  She  would  be  telling  him  all  the  office  jokes.  Well,  she 
might,  for  all  he  cared.  He  knew  fine  that  young  Innes  called 
him  Mr.  Philip  Hop-o'-my-Thumb  behind  his  back,  and  he 
didn't  give  a  straw  for  it.  He  stopped  in  front  of  a  picture- 
postcard  shop  that  was  hung  from  top  to  bottom  of  its  window 
with  strings  of  actresses'  photographs,  and  stood  there  with  a 
jaunty  rising  and  falling  of  the  heels,  bestowing  an  exaggerated 
attention  on  the  glossy  black  and  white  patterns  that  indicated 
the  glittering  facades  of  these  charmers'  smiles,  the  milky 
smoothness  of  their  bean-fed  femininity.  Ah,  these  were  the 
really  fine  women  that  it  was  worth  troubling  your  head  about, 
from  whose  satin  slippers,  it  was  well  known,  dukes  and  the 
like  drank  champagne.  Who  would  bother  about  a  wee  typist 
when  there  were  women  like  these  in  the  world? 

Rut  as  he  looked  at  them  he  perceived  that  there  was  not 
one  so  beautiful  as  Ellen,  and  he  walked  waveringly  on,  wrath- 
ful at  the  way  she  insisted  on  being  valuable  when  he  wanted 
to  despise  her.  A  woman  who  had  been  watching  him  for 
some  time,  and  who  knew  from  a  wide  experience  that  he  was 
in  one  of  those  aching  miseries  which  make  men  turn  to  such 
as  she,  slipped  from  the  shadows  and  murmured  to  him.  She 


142  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

was  taller  than  he,  and  had  to  bend  her  long  slender  neck  that 
he  might  hear.  He  hated  her  for  being  a  streetwalker  and  for 
being  taller  than  he,  and  began  to  swear  at  her.  But  before  he 
could  get  the  words  out  of  his  mouth  she  had  wiped  the  smile 
from  her  pale  oval  face  with  the  adeptness  of  a  proud  woman 
who  had  long  preserved  her  pride  in  the  fields  of  contempt,  and 
glided  away  with  a  dignity  that  denied  what  she  was  and  what 
had  happened.  That  struck  him  as  a  monstrous  breach  of 
the  social  contract,  for  surely  if  a  woman  was  a  bad  woman 
she  ought  to  stay  still  until  one  had  finished  swearing  at  her. 
But  all  these  women  were  vile.  There  was  no  measure  to 
the  vileness  that  Ellen  had  brought  on  him.  For  it  was  all 
her  fault,  since  he  never  would  have  gone  with  that  woman  in 
London  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  way  she  had  carried  on  the 
evening  before.  At  the  thought  of  that  night  in  Piccadilly  he 
began  to  hurry  along  the  street,  pushing  in  and  out  among  the 
people  as  if  he  insanely  hoped  to  lose  the  humiliating  memory 
as  one  can  lose  a  dog,  until  he  remembered  how  he  had  had  to 
hurry  along  beside  the  London  woman  because  she  was  a  great 
striding  creature  and  he  found  it  difficult  to  keep  step,  and 
then  he  walked  slowly.  It  had  all  been  so  ugly,  and  it  was  a 
fraud  too.  It  had  been  his  belief  that  the  advantage  of  prosti- 
tution was  that  it  gave  one  command  over  women  like  Ellen 
without  bringing  on  one  the  trouble  that  would  certainly  follow 
if  one  did  ill  to  Ellen ;  for  even  if  nobody  ever  found  out,  she 
would  look  at  one  with  those  eyes.  But  this  woman  was  not 
in  the  least  like  Ellen.  He  had  chosen  her  rather  than  the  girl 
in  the  white  boots  at  the  other  side  of  the  pavement  because 
he  thought  she  had  hair  like  Ellen,  but  when  she  took  her  hat 
off  he  saw  that  she  had  not.  It  was  funny  stuff,  with  an 
iridescence  on  it  as  if  she  had  been  rubbing  it  with  furniture 
polish.  Her  flat,  too,  was-  not  kept  as  Ellen  would  have  kept 
it.  And  she  had  not  been  kind,  as  Ellen,  when  she  moved 
softly  as  a  cloud  about  the  office  fetching  him  things,  or  sat 
listening,  with  chin  cupped  in  her  hands  and  a  hint  of  tears, 
to  the  story  of  his  disappointment  about  the  Navy ;  had  fraudu- 
lently led  him  to  believe  what  women  were  to  men.  She  had 
been  a  cruel  beast.  For  when  she  had  got  him  to  be  so  very 
wicked  she  might  have  spared  him  some  of  the  nastiness,  and 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  143 

not  said  those  awful  leering  things  so  loud.  Never  would  he 
forgive  Ellen  for  dragging  him  down  to  those  depths. 

He  was  walking  away  from  Princes  Street  to  his  own  home 
now,  and  the  decent  grey  vacuity  of  the  streets  soothed  him. 
If  he  only  had  the  sense  to  stay  in  the  district  of  orderly  houses 
where  he  belonged,  and  behaved  accordingly,  and  did  not  go 
talking  with  people  beneath  him,  he  could  not  come  to  harm. 
But  that  would  not  alter  the  fact  that  he  had  once  come  to 
harm.  As  he  passed  the  house  at  the  corner  of  his  street  he 
saw  that  a  "To  Let"  board  had  been  put  up  since  the  morning. 
He  wondered  why  the  Allardyces  were  leaving  it.  He  had 
been  at  school  with  the  boys.  He  and  Willie  Allardyce  had 
tied  tenth  in  the  mile  race  at  the  last  school  sports  in  which 
he  had  taken  part  before  he  left  the  Academy.  He  remem- 
bered how  they  had  all  stood  at  the  starting-post  in  the  windy 
sunshine,  straight  lads  in  their  singlets  and  shorts,  utterly  un- 
involved  in  anything  but  this  clean  thing  of  running  a  race; 
the  women  were  all  behind  the  barriers,  tolerated  spectators, 
and  one  was  too  busy  to  see  them ;  his  clothing  had  been  stiff 
with  sweat,  and  when  he  wriggled  his  body  the  cool  air  passed 
between  his  damp  vest  and  his  damp  flesh,  giving  him  a  cold, 
pure  feeling.  Well,  he  was  not  a  boy  any  longer.  The 
Allardyces  were  moving;  everything  was  changing  this  way 
and  that;  nothing  would  be  the  same  again.  .  .  . 

The  solidity  of  his  father's  house,  the  hall  into  which  he  let 
himself,  with  its  olive  green  wallpaper,  its  aneroid  barometer, 
an  oil-painting  of  his  mother's  father,  Mr.  Laurie  of  the  Bank 
of  Scotland,  made  him  feel  better.  He  reminded  himself  that 
he  belonged  to  one  of  the  most  respected  families  in  Edin- 
burgh, and  that  there  was  no  use  getting  upset  about  things 
that  nobody  would  ever  find  out,  and  he  went  into  the  dining- 
room  and  poured  himself  out  a  glass  of  whisky,  looking  round 
with  deep  satisfaction  at  his  prosperous  surroundings.  There 
was  a  very  handsome  red  wallpaper,  and  a  blazing  fire  that 
chased  the  tawny  lights  and  shadows  on  the  leviathanic  ma- 
hogany furniture  and  set  a  sparkle  on  the  thick  silver  and  fine 
glass  on  the  spread  table.  "Mhm !"  he  sighed  contentedly,  and 
raised  the  tumbler  to  his  lips.  But  the  smell  of  the  whisky 
recalled  to  him  the  flavour  of  that  Piccadilly  woman's  kisses. 


144  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

The  room  seemed  to  contract  and  break  out  into  soiled  pink 
valances.  He  put  down  his  glass,  groaned,  and  made  his  mind 
blank,  and  was  immediately  revisited  by  the  thought  of  Ellen's 
face  on  her  spilt  red  hair.  An  ingenious  thought  struck  him, 
and  he  hurried  from  the  room.  He  met  one  of  his  sisters  in 
the  passage,  and  said,  "Away,  I  want  to  speak  to  father."  It 
was  true  that  she  was  not  preventing  him  from  doing  so,  but 
the  gesture  of  dominance  over  the  female  gave  him  satis- 
faction. 

There  was  a  little  study  at  the  back  of  the  house  which  was 
lined  from  top  to  bottom  with  soberly  bound  and  unrecent 
books,  and  dominated  by  a  bust  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  supported 
on  a  revolving  bookcase  which  contained  the  Waverley  Novels, 
Burns'  Poems,  and  Chambers'  Dictionary,  which  had  an  air  of 
having  been  put  there  argumentatively,  as  a  manifesto  of  the 
Scottish  view  that  intellect  is  their  local  industry.  Here,  in  a 
fog  of  tobacco  smoke,  Mr.  Mactavish  James  reclined  like  a 
stranded  whale,  reading  the  London  Law  Journal  and  breath- 
ing disparagingly  through  both  mouth  and  nose  at  once,  as  he 
always  did  when  in  contact  with  the  English  mind.  He  did 
not  look  up  when  Mr.  Philip  came  in,  but  indicated  by  a 
"Humph !"  that  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  entrance.  There 
was  an  indefinable  tone  in  this  grunt  which  made  Mr.  Philip 
wonder  whether  he  had  not  been  overmuch  influenced  in  seek- 
ing this  interview  by  the  conventional  view  of  the  parental 
relationship.  He  sometimes  suspected  that  his  father  regarded 
him  with  accuracy,  rather  than  with  the  indulgence  that  fathers 
habitually  show  to  their  only  sons.  But  he  went  at  it. 

"Father,  you'll  have  to  speak  to  yon  Melville  girl." 

Mr.  Mactavish  James  did  not  raise  his  eyes,  but  enquired 
with  the  faintest  threat  of  mockery,  "What's  she  been  doing 
to  you,  Philip?" 

"She's  not  been  doing  anything  to  me.  What  could  she  do? 
But  I've  just  seen  her  in  Princes  Street  with  yon  fellow  Yaver- 
land,  the  client  from  Rio.  They  were  coming  out  of  the 
station  and  they  took  a  cab." 

"What  for  should  they  not?" 

"You  can't  have  a  typist  prancing  about  with  clients  at  this 
time  of  night." 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  145 

"It's  airly  yet,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James  mildly,  continu- 
ing to  turn  over  the  pages  of  the  Law  Journal.  "We've  not 
had  our  dinners  yet.  Though  from  the  way  the  s'mell  of  vic- 
tuals is  roaring  up  the  back  stairs  we  shouldn't  be  long." 

"Father,  people  were  looking  at  them.  They — they  were 
holding  hands."  He  forced  himself  to  believe  the  lie.  "You 
can't  have  her  carrying  on  like  that  with  clients.  It'll  give 
the  office  a  bad  name." 

At  last  his  father  raised  his  eyes,  which,  though  bleared  with 
age,  were  still  the  windows  of  a  sceptical  soul,  and  let  them 
fall.  "Ellen  is  a  good  girl,  Philip,"  he  said. 

The  young  man  began  a  gesture  of  despair,  which  he  re- 
strained lest  those  inimical  eyes  should  lift  again.  This  was 
not  a  place,  he  well  knew,  where  sentimental  values  held  good, 
where  the  part  of  a  young  and  unprotected  girl  would  be  taken 
against  the  son  of  the  house  out  of  any  mawkish  feeling  that 
youth  or  weakness  of  womanhood  deserved  especial  tender- 
ness. It  was  the  stronghold  of  his  own  views,  its  standards 
were  his  own.  And  even  here  it  was  insisted  that  Ellen  was 
a  person  of  value.  There  seemed  nothing  in  the  world  that 
would  give  him  any  help  in  his1  urgent  need  to  despise  her,  to 
think  of  her  as  dirt,  to  throw  on  her  the  onus  of  all  the  vile- 
ness  that  had  happened  to  him.  He  broke  out,  "If  she's  a  good 
girl  she  ought  to  behave  as  such!  You  must  speak  to  her, 
father.  There'll  be  a  scandal  in  the  town!" 

Mr.  Mactavish  James  seemed  to  have  withdrawn  his  mind 
from  the  discussion,  for  he  had  taken  out  his1  appointment 
diary,  which  could  surely  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  case. 
But  when  Mr.  Philip  had  turned  towards  the  door,  the  old 
man  said,  amiably  enough,  "Ay,  I'll  speak  to  Nelly.  I'll  speak 
to  her  on  Monday  afternoon.  The  morning  I  must  be  up  at 
the  Court  of  Session.  But  in  the  afternoon  I'll  give  the  girl 
a  word." 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Mr.  Philip's  tongue  to  cry,  "Thank 
you,  father,  thank  you!"  but  he  remembered  that  this  was 
merely  a  matter  of  office  discipline  that  was  being  settled,  and 
no  personal  concern  of  his.  So  he  said,  "I  think  it  would  be 
wise,  father,"  and  went  out  of  the  room.  He  ran  upstairs 
whistling.  It  would  be  a  great  come-down  for  her  that  had 


146  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

always  been  such  a  pet  of  his  father's  to  be  spoken  to  about 
her  conduct. 


n 

The  door  had  swung  ajar,  so  Mr.  Mactavish  James  in  his 
seat  at  his  desk  was  able  to  look  into  the  further  room  and 
keep  an  eye  on  Ellen,  who  was  sitting  with  her  back  to  him, 
supporting  her  bright  head  on  her  hand  and  staring  fixedly 
down  at  something  on  the  table.  Her  appearance  entertained 
him,  as  it  always  did.  He  chuckled  over  the  shapeless  blue 
overall,  just  like  a  bairn's,  that  she  wore  on  her  neat  wee 
figure,  and  the  wild  shining  hair  which  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  a  tamarisk  hedge  in  a  high  wind,  though  she  would 
have  barked  like  a  terrier  at  anyone  who  suggested  that  it  was 
not  as  neatly  a  done  head  as  any  in  Edinburgh.  But  he  was 
very  anxious  about  her.  For  some  moments  now  she  had  not 
moved,  and  this  immobility  was  so  unnatural  in  her  that  he 
knew  she  must  be  somehow  deeply  hurt,  as  one  who  sees  a 
bird  quite  still  knows  that  it  is  dead  or  dying.  "Tuts,  tuts," 
he  sighed.  "This  must  be  looked  to.  She  is  the  bonniest  lassie 
that  I've  ever  seen.  Excepting  Isabella  Kingan."  His  right 
hand,  which  had  been  lying  listlessly  on  the  desk  before  him, 
palm  upwards,  turned  over  when  he  thought  of  Isabella 
Kingan.  The  ringers  crooked,  and  it  became  an  instrument  of 
will,  like  the  hand  of  a  young  man. 

But  he  was  really  quite  old,  nearly  seventy,  and  well  on  the 
way  to  lose  the  human  obsession  of  the  importance  of  hu- 
manity ;  so  his  attention  began  to  note,  as  if  they  were  not  less 
significant  than  Ellen's  agony,  the  motes  that  were  dancing  in 
the  bar  of  pale  autumn  sunshine  that  lay  athwart  the  room. 
"It  is  a  queer  thing,"  his  mind  droned  on,  "that  when  I  came 
here  when  I  was  young  I  saw  there  was  a  peck  of  dust  in  every 
room,  and  I  blamed  old  Mr.  Logan  for  keeping  on  yon  dirty 
old  wife  of  a  caretaker.  I  said  to  myself  that  when  I  was  the 
master  I  would  have  it  like  a  new  pin  and  put  a  decent  buddy 
in  the  basement.  And  now  Mr.  Logan  is  long  dead,  and  the 
old  wife  is  long  dead,  and  I  have  had  things  my  own  way  these 
many  years,  but  the  place  is  still  foul  as  a  him,  and  I  keep  on 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  147 

yon  slut  of  a  Mrs.  Powell.  Ah  well!  Ah  well!"  He  pon- 
dered, with  a  Scotch  sort  of  enjoyment,  on  the  frustration  of 
youth's  hopes  and  the  progress  of  mortality  in  himself,  until 
a  movement  of  Ellen's  bright  head,  such  a  jerk  as  might  have 
been  caused  by  a  silent  sob,  brought  his  thoughts  back  to  beauty 
and  his  small  personal  traffic  with  it. 

"I  do  not  know  why  she  should  mind  me  of  Isabella  Kingan, 
She  is  not  like  her.  Isabella  was  black  as  a  wee  crow.  It  is 
just  that  they're  both  very  bonny.  I  wonder  what  has  hap- 
pened to  Isabella.  She  must  be  sixty-five.  I  saw  her  once  in 
Glasgow,  in  Sauchiehall  Street,  after  she  was  married,  but  she 
would  not  speak.  Yet  what  else  could  I  have  done  ?  I  had  my 
way  to  make,  and  it  was  known  up  and  down  the  length  of 
Edinburgh  that  her  mother  kept  a  sweetie  shop  in  Leith  Walk, 
and  she  had  a  cousin  who  was  a  policeman  in  the  town.  No, 
no,  it  would  not  have  been  a  suitable  marriage." 

He  moved  restlessly  in  his  chair,  vexed  by  a  sense  of  guilt, 
which  although  he  immediately  mitigated  it  into  a  suspicion 
that  he  might  have  behaved  more  wisely,  made  his  memory 
maliciously  busy  opening  doors  which  he  had  believed  he  had 
locked.  But  he  was  so  expert  in  the  gymnastic  art  of  standing 
well  with  himself  and  the  world  that  he  could  turn  each  recol- 
lected incident  to  a  cause  of  self-approbation  before  he  had 
begun  to  flush.  For  a  few  moments,  using  the  idioms  of 
Burns'  love-lyrics,  which  were  the  only  dignified  and  unobscene 
references  to  passion  he  had  ever  encountered,  he  thought  of 
that  night  when  he  had  persuaded  little  Isabella  to  linger  in 
the  fosse  of  shadow  under  the  high  wall  in  Canaan  Lane  and 
give  up  her  mouth  to  his  kisses,  her  tiny  warm  dove's  body 
to  his  arms.  Never  in  all  the  forty-five  intervening  years  had 
he  seen  such  a  wall  on  such  a  night,  its  base  in  velvety  dark- 
ness and  its  topmost  half  shining  ghostly  as  plaster  does  in 
moonlight,  without  his  hands  remembering  the  queer  pleasure 
it  had  been  to  crush  crisp  muslin,  without  his  heart  remem- 
bering the  joy  it  had  been  to  coax  from  primness  its  first  con~ 
sent  to  kisses.  Before  he  could  reproach  himself  for  having 
turned  that  perfect  hour  into  a  shame  to  her  who  gave  it  by 
his  later  treachery,  he  began  to  reflect  what  a  steady  young 
fellow  he  had  been  to  have  known  no  other  amorous  incident 


148  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

in  all  his  unmarried  days  than  this  innocent  fondling  on  a 
summer's  night. 

But  there  pressed  in  on  him  the  recollection  of  how  she  had 
dwined  away  when  she  realised  that,  though  he  had  kissed  her, 
he  did  not  mean  to  marry  her.  He  saw  again  the  pale  face 
she  ever  after  wore ;  he  remembered  how,  when  he  met  her  in 
the  street,  she  used  at  first  to  droop  her  head  and  blush,  until 
her  will  lifted  her  chin  like  a  bearing-rein  and  she  forced  her- 
self to  a  proud  blank  stare,  while  her  small  stature  worked 
to  make  her  crinoline  an  indignant  spreading  majesty  behind 
her.  Yet,  after  all,  she  was  not  the  only  person  to  be  incon- 
venienced, for  he  had  fashed  himself  a  great  deal  over  the 
business  and  had  slept  very  badly  for  a  time.  He  exhorted 
her  reproachful  ghost  not  to  be  selfish.  Besides,  she  had  some- 
how brought  it  on  herself  by  looking  what  she  did;  for  her 
dark  eyes,  very  bright,  yet  with  a  kind  of  bloom  on  them,  and 
her  full  though  tiny  underlip  had  always  looked  as  if  it  would 
be  very  easy  to  make  her  cry,  and  she  had  had  a  preference 
for  wearing  grey  and  brown  and  such  modest  colours  that 
made  it  plain  she  feared  to  be  noticed.  To  display  a  capacity 
for  pain  so  visibly  was  just  to  invite  people  to  test  it.  If  she 
had  been  a  girl  who  could  look  after  herself,  doubtless  she 
would  have  got  him.  He  paid  her  the  high  compliment  of 
wishing  that  she  had,  although  he  had  done  very  well  out  of 
the  marriages  he  had  made,  for  his  first  wife,  Annie  Logan, 
had  brought  him  his  partnership  in  the  firm,  and  his  second, 
Christian  Lawrie,  had  brought  him  a  deal  of  money.  But 
Isabella  had  been  such  a  bonny  wee  thing. 

His  skin  became  alive  again,  and  remembered  the  few  re- 
sponding kisses  that  he  had  wheedled  from  her,  contacts  so  shy 
that  they  might  have  been  the  poisings  of  a  moth.  He  shud- 
dered, and  said,  "Ech !  Somebody's  walking  over  my  grave !" 
though,  indeed,  what  had  happened  was  that  his  youth  had 
risen  from  its  grave.  He  decided  to  be  generous1  to  Isabella 
and  not  bear  her  a  grudge  for  causing  him  this  revisiting  heart- 
ache. With  the  softest  pity  that  the  lot  of  beauty  in  this  world 
should  be  so  hard,  though  quite  without  self-condemnation,  he 
thought  how  very  sure  the  poor  girl  must  have  been  that  he 
meant  to  marry  her  before  she  abandoned  that  proud  physical 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  149 

reserve  that  was  the  protecting  integument  of  her  sensitive 
soul.  That  sensitiveness  seemed  fair  ridiculous  when  things 
were  going  well  with  him ;  but  once  or  twice  in  his  life,  when 
he  had  been  ill,  it  had  appeared  so  dreadful  that  he  had  desired 
either  to  be  young  again  and  give  a  different  twist  to  things, 
or  to  die  utterly  and  know  no  after-life. 

No,  dealing  unkindly  with  the  lasses  was  an  ill  thing  to  do. 
It  made  one  depressed  afterwards  even  if  it  paid,  just  as  cheat- 
ing the  widow  and  orphan  did.  His  eyes  went  back  to  Ellen, 
who  had  moved  again.  "I  must  settle  this  business  of  Nelly's," 
he  thought.  "Of  course,  Philip  is  quite  right.  It  would  not  be 
suitable.  Besides,  he  is  getting  on  nicely  with  Bob  McLennan's 
girl,  and  that  would  be  a  capital  match  even  for  us.  But  I 
must  put  things  straight  for  my  Nelly,  my  poor  wee  Nelly." 
He  rose,  first  feeling  for  his  crutch,  for  he  was  fair  dying  on 
his  legs  with  the  gout,  and  padded  slowly  towards  the -open 
door. 

And  at  the  sound  of  that  soft  bearish  tread  Ellen  felt  as  if 
she  were  going  to  die.  There  had  arrived  at  last  that  moment 
for  which  she  had  waited  with  an  increasing  faintness  all  that 
day,  since  the  moment  when  Mr.  Philip  had  caught  her  in  front 
of  the  mantelpiece  mirror.  She  had  gone  to  look  at  herself 
out  of  curiosity,  to  see  whether  she  had  in  any  way  been 
changed  by  the  extraordinary  emotions  that  had  lately  visited 
her.  For  she  had  spent  two  horrible  nights  of  hatred  for 
Yaverland.  She  had  begun  to  hate  him  quite  suddenly  when 
he  brought  her  home  to  say  good-night  to  her  mother.  There 
had  broken  out  the  usual  tumult  in  the  dancing-hall,  and  he  had 
raised  his  head  with  an  intent  delighted  look  that  at  first  she 
watched  happily,  because  she  loved  to  see  his  face,  which  too 
often  wore  gravity  like  a  dark  mask,  grow  brilliant  with  in- 
terest. But  he  quickly  deleted  that  expression  and  shot  a  fur- 
tive glance  at  her,  as  if  he  feared  she  might  have  overheard  his; 
thoughts,  and  she  saw  that  he  was  anxious  that  she  should 
not  share  some  imagination  that  had  given  him  pleasure. 

She  went  and  sat  on  a  low  stool  by  the  fire,  turning  her 
face  away  from  him.  So  he  was  as  little  friendly  as  the  rest 
of  the  world.  Surely  it  was  plain  enough  that  she  lived  in 
&e  extremity  of  destitution.  The  only  place  that  was  hers 


150  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

was  this  drab  little  room  with  the  shaking  walls  and  peeling 
chairs;  the  only  person  that  belonged  to  her  was  her  mother, 
who  was  very  dear  but  very  old  and  grieving;  and  though 
everybody  else  on  earth  seemed  to  have  acquired  a  paradise 
on  easy  terms,  nobody  would  let  her  look  in  at  theirs.  It 
appeared  that  he  was  just  like  the  others.  She  folded  her 
arms  across  her  breast  to  compress  her  swelling  misery,  while 
he  sat  there,  cruelly  not  hurrying,  and  said  courteous  things 
that  afterwards  repeated  themselves  in  her  ear  all  night,  each 
time  a  little  louder,  till  by  the  dawn  they  had  become  ringing 
proclamations  of  indifference. 

Yaverland  had  turned  on  the  doorstep  as  he  left  and  told 
her  that,  though  he  believed  he  had  to  motor-cycle  to  Glasgow 
the  next  day  to  see  one  of  his  directors  there,  it  was  just  pos- 
sible there  might  be  a  telephone  message  at  his  hotel  telling 
him  he  need  not  do  so ;  and  he  had  asked  that  if  this  were  so 
might  he  spend  the  time  with  her  instead.  Because  of  this  she 
had  lived  all  Sunday  in  the  dread  of  his  coming.  Yet  very 
often  she  found  herself  arrested  in  the  midst  of  some  homely 
action,  letting  some  tap  run  on  to  inordinate  splashings,  some 
pot  boil  to  an  explosion  of  flavoured  fumes,  because  she  was 
brooding  with  an  infatuated  smile  on  his  rich  colours  and  rich 
ways,  on  the  slouch  by  which  he  dissembled  the  strength  of 
his  body,  the  slow  speech  by  which  he  dissembled  the  violence 
of  his  soul.  But  there  returned  at  once  her  hatred  of  him,  and 
she  would  long  to  lay  her  hand  in  his  confidingly  as  if  in 
friendship,  and  then  drive  her  nails  suddenly  into  his  flesh,  so 
that  she  would  ifiake  a  fool  of  him  as  well  as  hurt  him.  At 
that  she  would  draw  her  cold  hands  across  her  hot  brow,  and 
wonder  why  she  should  think  so  malignantly  of  one  who  had 
been  so  kind — so  much  kinder  than  anybody  else  had  ever  been 
to  her,  although  she  had  no  claim  upon  him.  Yet  she  knew 
that  no  argument  could  alter  the  fixed  opinion  of  her  spirit 
that  Yaverland's  kingly  progress  through  the  world,  which  a 
short  time  ago  she  had  watched  with  such  a  singing  of  the 
veins  as  she  knew  when  she  saw  lightning,  was  an  insult  to  her 
lesser  height,  her  contemned  sex,  her  obscurity.  The  chaos  in 
herself  amazed  her.  The  glass  showed  her  that  she  was  very 
pale,  and  she  wondered  if  such  pallor  was  a  sign  of  madness. 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  151 

"I  will  not  go  daft!"  she  whimpered,  and  began  rubbing  her 
cheeks  with  her  knuckles  to  bring  back  the  colour;  and  saw 
among  the  quiet  reflected  things  the  queer  face,  its  features 
pulled  every  way  with  derision,  of  Mr.  Philip. 

He  said  twangingly,  "Ten  minutes  past  nine,  Miss  Melville !" 

Her  heart  was  bursting  with  the  thought  of  what  made-up 
tales  of  vanity  he  would  spin  from  this.  "Later  than  that. 
Later  than  that,"  she  told  him  wildly.  "And  I  have  been  here 
since  dear  knows  when,  and  there  is  nobody  ready  to  give  me 
work." 

He  shot  out  a  ringer.     "What's  that  by  your  machine?" 

She  noticed  that  his  finger  was  shaking,  and  that  he  too  was 
very  pale,  and  she  forgot  to  feel  rage  or  anything  but  im- 
measurable despair  that  she  should  have  to  live  in  this  world 
where  everyone  was  either  inscrutably  cruel  or  mad.  She  mur- 
mured levelly,  dreamily,  "Why,  papers  that  you  have  just  put 
down.  I  will  type  them  at  once.  I  will  type  them  at  once." 

For  a  time  he  stood  behind  her  at  the  hearth,  breathing 
snortingly,  and  at  times  seeming  to  laugh ;  said  in  a  half-voice, 
"A  fire  fit  to  roast  an  ox !"  and  for  a  space  was  busy  moving 
lumps  of  coal  down  into  the  grate.  A  silence  followed  before 
he  came  to  the  other  side  of  her  table  and  said,  "Stop  that 
noise.  I  want  to  speak  to  you."  The  gesture  was  rude,  but  it 
was  picoteed  with  a  faint  edge  of  pitifulness.  The  way  he  put 
his  hand  to  his  head  suggested  that  he  was  in  pain,  so  she 
shifted  her  hands  from  the  keys  and  looked  up  vigilantly,  pre- 
pared to  be  kind  if  he  had  need  of  it,  for  of  course  people  in 
pain  did  not  know  what  they  were  doing.  But  since  there  was 
no  sense  in  letting  people  think  they  could  just  bite  one's  head 
off  and  nothing  to  pay,  she  said  with  spirit,  "But  it's  ten 
minutes  past  nine,  and  what's  this  by  my  machine?" 

Mr.  Philip  bowed  his  head  with  an  air  of  meekness;  he 
seemed  to  sway  under  the  burden  of  his  extreme  humility,  to 
be  feeling  sick  under  the  strain  of  his  extreme  forbearance. 
He  went  on  in  a  voice  which  implied  that  he  was  forgiving 
her  freely  for  an  orgy  of  impertinence.  "Will  you  please  take 
a  note,  Miss  Melville,  that  Mr.  Mactavish  James  wants  to 
speak  to  you  this  afternoon?" 

"He  usually  does,"  replied  Ellen. 


152  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"Ah,  but  this  is  a  special  occasion,"  said  Mr.  Philip,  with  so 
genial  an  expression  that  she  stared  up  at  him,  her  eyebrows 
knit  and  her  mouth  puckering  back  a  smile,  her  deep  hopeful 
prepossession,  which  she  held  in  common  with  all  young  people, 
that  things  really  happened  prettily,  making  her  ready  to  be- 
lieve that  it  was  all  a  mistake  and  he  was  about  to  announce  a 
treat  or  a  promotion.  And  he,  reading  this  ridiculous  sign  of 
youth,  bent  over  her,  prolonging  his  kind  beam  and  her  re- 
sponse to  it,  so  that  afterwards,  when  he  undeceived  her,  there 
should  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  she  had  worn  that  silly  air  of 
expecting  something  nice  to  be  given  to  her,  and  no  doubt  that 
he  had  seen  and  understood  and  jeered  at  it.  Then  the  wave 
of  his  malice  broke  and  soused  her.  "Things  have  come  to  a 
head,  Miss  Melville!  There's  been  a  client  complaining!" 

She  drew  herself  up.  "A  client  complaining!"  she  cried, 
and  he  hated  her  still  more,  for  she  had  again  eluded  him.  She 
had  forgotten  him  and  the  trap  he  had  laid  to  make  a  fool  of 
her  in  her  suspicion  that  someone  had  dared  to  question  her 
efficiency.  "Well,  what's  that  to  do  with  me?  Whoever's 
been  complaining — and  no  doubt  if  your  clients  once  began  at 
that  game  they  wouldn't  need  to  stop  between  now  and  the 
one  o'clock  gun — it's  not  likely  I'm  among  his  troubles.  So  far 
as  my  work  goes  I'm  practically  infallible." 

"It's  not  your  work  that's  been  spoken  of,"  said  Mr.  Philip, 
laughing.  "Perhaps  we  might  call  it  your  play." 

He  had  begun  to  speak,  as  he  always  did  when  they  were 
alone,  in  a  thick  whisper,  as  if  they  were  doing  something  un- 
lawful together.  He  had  drawn  near  to  her,  as  he  always  did, 
and  was  hunching  his  shoulders  and  making  wriggling  reces- 
sive movements  such  as  a  man  might  make  who  stood  in  dark- 
ness among  moving  pollutions.  But  his  glee  had  gone.  It  had 
grown  indeed  to  a  grey  effervescence  that  set  a  tremor  working 
over  his  features,  made  him  speak  in  shaken  phrases,  and 
unsteadied  everything  about  him  except  the  gloating  stare 
which  he  bent  on  her  bowed  head  because  he  was  eager  to  see 
her  face,  which  surely  would  look  plain  with  all  her  colour 
gone.  "There's  just  a  limit  to  everything,  Miss  Melville,  a 
limit  to  everything.  You  seem  to  have  come  to  it.  Ay,  long 
ago,  I  have  been  thinking!  You'd  better  know  at  once  that 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  153 

you  were  seen  late  on  Saturday  night,  hanging  about  with  a 
man.  It  sounded  like  yon  chemist  chap  from  the  description. 
You  were  seen  entering  a  cab  and  driving  away.  I  won't 
tell  you" — he  stepped  backwards,  swelled  a  little,  and  became 
the  respectable  man  who  has  to  hem  a  dry  embarrassed  cough 
before  he  speaks  of  evil — "what  the  client  made  of  it  all." 
And  then  he  bent  again  in  that  contracted,  loathing  attitude, 
as  if  they  were  standing  in  an  unspacious  sewer  and  she  had 
led  him  there,  and  with  that  viscous  sibilance  he  said  many 
things  which  she  could  not  fully  understand,  but  which  seemed 
to  mean  that  under  decent  life  there  was  an  oozy  mud  and  she 
had  somehow  wallowed  in  it.  "But  doubtless  you'll  be  able 
to  give  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  incident,"  he  finished ; 
and  as  she  continued  to  bow  her  head,  so  that  he  could  not  see 
the  effects  of  this  misery  which  he  had  so  adroitly  thrust  upon 
her,  he  leant  over  her  crying  out  he  hardly  knew  what,  save 
that  they  were  persecuting  things. 

But  when  she  slowly  raised  her  chin  he  saw  with  rage  that 
though  he  had  spoilt  the  colour  of  her  skin  with  fear,  and  made 
her  break  up  the  serene  pattern  of  her  features  with  twitching 
efforts  to  hold  back  her  tears,  he  had  not  been  able  to  destroy 
the  secondary  meaning  of  her  face.  It  had  ceased  to  be  pretty ; 
it  no  longer  offered  lovely  untroubled  surfaces  to  the  lips. 
But  it  still  proclaimed  that  she  was  indubitably  precious  as  a 
diamond  is  indubitably  hard ;  it  still  calmly  declared  that  if  evil 
had  come  out  of  his  meeting  with  her  it  had  been  contrived  out 
of  innocence  by  some  dark  alchemy  of  his  own  soul;  it  still 
moved  him  to  a  madness  of  unprofitable  loyalty  and  tender- 
ness. In  every  way  he  was  defeated.  It  seemed  now  the  least 
of  his  miseries  that  he  had  failed  to  destroy  his  father's  per- 
suasion that  Ellen  was  a  person  of  value,  for  it  was  so  much 
worse,  it  opened  the  door  to  so  long  a  procession  of  noble  and 
undesired  desires,  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  destroy.  That 
same  persuasion  in  himself.  He  counted  it  a  fresh  grievance 
against  her,  and  planned  to  pay  it  out  with  cruelty,  that  she  had 
made  him  waste  all  his  efforts.  For  though  he  had  certainly 
made  her  cry,  he  could  not  count  that  any  great  triumph,  since 
under  the  shower  of  her  weeping  her  gaiety  was  dancing  like 
a  draggled  elf.  "Och  me!"  she  was  saying.  "You  want  me 


154  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

to  give  you  an  explanation?  But  when  I've  got  an  appoint- 
ment to  talk  the  matter  over  with  the  head  of  the  firm,  what 
for  would  I  waste  my  time  talking  it  over  with  the  junior 
partner?"  And  she  began  to  type  as  if  she  was  playing  a  jig. 

He  made  a  furious  movement  of  the  hands.  She  thought 
contemptuously,  "The  wee  thing  he  is !  Even  if  he  struck  me 
I  should  not  be  afraid.  Now,  if  it  were  Yaverland,  I  should 
be  terrified.  .  .  ."  The  idea  struck  through  her  like  a  pleasure, 
until  there  fell  upon  her  as  the  completion  of  a  misery  that 
had  seemed  complete,  like  the  last  extreme  darkness  which 
falls  on  a  dark  night  when  the  last  star  is  found  by  the  clouds, 
the  recollection  that  Yaverland  also  was  detestable.  Ah,  this 
was  a  piece  of  foolishness  between  Mr.  Philip  and  herself.  In 
a  world  where  misery  was  the  prevailing  climate,  where  there 
were  men  like  Yaverland,  who  could  effortlessly  deal  out  pain 
right  and  left  by  simply  being  themselves,  it  was  so  foolish  that 
one  who  had  surely  had  a  natural  turn  for  being  nice,  who  had 
been  so  very  nice  that  firelit  evening  when  they  had  talked 
secrets,  should  put  himself  about  to  hurt  her.  Her  eyes  fol- 
lowed him  imploringly  as  he  went  towards  the  door,  and  she 
cried  out  silently  to  him,  begging  him  to  be  kind.  But  when  he 
turned  and  looked  over  his  shoulder  she  remembered  his 
tyranny,  and  hardened  her  piteous  gaze  into  a  stare  of  loath- 
ing. It  added  to  her  sense  of  living  in  a  deep  cell  of  madness, 
fathoms  below  the  rays  of  reason,  that  she  had  an  illusion  that 
in  his  eyes  she  saw  just  that  same  change  from  piteousness  to 
loathing.  For  of  course  it  could  not  be  so. 

Her  quivering  lips  said  gallantly  to  the  banged  door :  "Well, 
there  is  my  wurrk.  I  will  forget  my  petty  pairsonal  troubles 
in  my  wurrk,  just  as  men  do !"  And  she  typed  away,  squeez- 
ing out  such  drops  of  pride  of  craftsmanship  as  can  be  found 
in  that  mechanical  exercise,  making  no  mistakes,  and  ending 
the  lines  so  that  they  built  up  a  well-proportioned  page,  so 
intently  that  she  had  almost  finished  before  she  noticed  that  it 
was  funny  stuff  about  a  divorce  such  as  Mr.  Mactavish  James 
always  gave  to  one  of  the  male  clerks  to  copy.  But  that  was 
all  the  work  she  had  to  do  that  morning,  for  Mr.  Mactavish 
James  was  up  at  the  Court  of  Session  and  Mr.  Philip  did  not 
send  for  her.  She  was  obliged  to  sit  in  her  idleness  as  in  a 


CHAPTER    IV 


THE  JUDGE  155 


bare  cell,  with  nothing  to  look  at  but  her  misery,  which  con- 
tinued to  spin  like  a  top,  moving  perpetually  without  getting 
any  further  or  changing  into  anything  else.  Presently  she 
went  and  knelt  in  the  windowseat,  drawing  patterns  on  the 
glass  and  looking  up  the  side-street  at  the  Castle  Rock,  which 
now  glowed  with  a  dark  pyritic  lustre  under  the -queer  autumn 
day  of  bright  south  sunshine  and  scudding  bruise-coloured 
clouds,  seeing  the  familiar  scene  strangely,  through  a  lens  of 
tears.  She  fell  to  thinking  out  peppered  phrases  to  say  of  the 
client  who  had  told  on  her.  Surely  she  had  as  much  right  in 
Princes  Street  as  he  had  ?  And  if  it  was  too  late  for  her  to  be 
there,  then  it  was  too  late  for  him  also.  "It's  just  a  case  of 
one  law  for  the  man  and  another  for  the  woman.  Och,  votes 
for  women !"  she  cried  savagely,  and  flogged  the  window  with 
the  blindcord.  Ten  to  one  it  was  yon  Mr.  Grieve,  the  minister 
of  West  Braeburn,  who  fairly  blew  in  your  face  with  waggish- 
ness  when  you  offered  him  a  chair  in  the  waiting-room,  and 
tee-heed  that  "a  lawyer's  office  must  be  a  dull  place  for  a  young 
leddy  like  you  !'J  Well,  she  knew  what  Mr.  Mactavish  James 
thought  of  him  for  his  dealings  with  his  wife's  money.  .  .  . 
But  the  peppered  phrases  would  not  come.  One  cannot  do 
more  than  one  thing  at  a  time  fairly  well,  and  she  was  certainly 
crying  magnificently.  "Such  a  steady  downpour  I  never  did 
see  since  that  week  mother  and  I  spent  at  Oban,"  she  thought 
into  her  sodden  handkerchief.  "It  was  a  shame  the  way  it 
rained  all  the  time,  when  we  had  had  to  save  for  months  to  pay 
for  the  trip.  But  life  is  like  that.  .  .  ."  Ah,  what  did  they  think 
she  had  been  doing  with  that  man  Yaverland?  The  shocked 
dipping  undertones  of  Mr.  Philip's  voice,  the  ashamed  heat  of 
his  eyes,  were  just  the  same  as  grown-up  people  used  when 
they  told  mother  why  they  had  had  to  turn  the  maid  away, 
and  that,  so  far  as  she  could  make  out,  though  they  always 
spoke  softly  so  that  she  could  not  hear,  was  because  the  maid 
had  let  somebody  kiss  her.  What  was  the  use  of  having  been 
a  quiet  decent  girl  all  her  days,  of  never  stopping  when  students 
spoke  to  her,  of  never  wearing  emerald  green,  though  the 
colour  went  fine  with  her  hair,  when  people  were  ready  to 
believe  this  awful  thing  of  her?  They  must  be  mad  not  to 
see  that  she  would  rather  die  than  let  any  man  on  earth  touch 


156  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

her  in  any  way,  and  least  of  all  Yaverland,  whom  she  hated. 
There  came  before  her  eyes  the  memory  of  that  bluish  bloom 
on  his  lips  and  jaw  which  she  had  noticed  the  first  time  she 
saw  him,  and  she  rocked  herself  to  and  fro  in  a  passion  of 
tears  at  the  thought  she  was  suspected  of  close  contact  with 
this  loathsome  maleness.  She  felt  as  if  there  was  buried  in 
her  bosom  a  harp  with  many  strings,  and  each  string  was 
snapping  separately. 

"Och,  votes  for  women!"  she  said  wearily;  and  tried  to 
make  herself  remember  that  after  all  there  were  some  un- 
stained noble  things  in  the  world  by  singing  whisperingly  a 
verse  from  the  Women's  Marseillaise.  "There's  many  singing 
that  song  to-day  in  prison  that  would  be  glad  to  sit  and  breathe 
fresh  air  and  look  at  a  fine  view  as  you're  doing,  so  you  ought 
to  be  thankful !"  And  indeed  the  view  of  the  Castle  did  just 
for  that  moment  distract  her  from  the  business  of  weeping, 
for  there  had  been  a  certain  violent  alteration  of  the  weather. 
The  autumn  sunshine,  which  had  never  been  more  than  a  sar- 
casm on  the  part  of  a  thoroughly  unpleasant  day,  had  failed 
altogether,  and  Edinburgh  had  become  a  series  of  corridors 
through  which  there  rushed  a  trampling  wind.  It  set  the 
dead  leaves  rising  from  the  pavement  in  an  exasperated,  sedi- 
tious way,  and  let  them  ride  dispersedly  through  the  eddying 
air  far  above  the  heads  of  the  clambering  figures  that,  up  and 
down  the  side-street,  stood  arrested  and,  it  seemed,  flattened, 
as  if  they  had  been  spatchcocked  by  the  advancing  wind  and 
found  great  difficulty  in  folding  themselves  up  again.  She 
looked  at  their  struggles  with  contempt.  They  were  funny 
wee  men.  They  were  not  like  Yaverland.  Now,  he  was  a 
fine  man.  She  thought  proudly  of  the  enormousness  of  his 
chest  and  shoulders,  and  imagined  the  tremendous  thudding 
thing  the  heartbeat  must  be  that  infused  with  blood  such  huge- 
ness. He  must  be  one  of  the  most  glorious  men  who  ever 
lived.  It  surely  was  not  often  that  a  man  was  perfect  in  every 
way  physically  and  mentally. 

She  turned  away  and  hid  her  face  against  the  shutters, 
weeping  bitterly.  But  her  mind  had  to  follow  him  in  a  kind 
of  dream,  as  he  walked  on,  masterfully,  as  one  who  knows  he 
has  the  right  to  come  and  go,  out  of  that  wet  grey  street  of 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  157 

which  she  was  a  part,  to  wander  as  he  chose  in  strange  conti- 
nents, in  exotic  weathers,  through  time  sequined  with  extrava- 
gant dawns  and  sunsets,  through  space  jewelled  with  towns 
running  red  with  blood  of  revolutions  or  multi-coloured  with 
carnival.  In  every  way  he  was  richer  than  she  was,  for  he 
had  more  joy  in  travelling  than  she  would  have  had,  since 
over  the  scenic  world  she  saw  there  was  cast  for  him  a  nexus 
of  romance  which  she  could  not  have  perceived. 

Everywhere  he  would  meet  men  whom  he  had  captained 
on  desperate  adventures,  who  over  wine  would  point  ringed 
fingers  at  mountain  ranges  and  whisper  of  forgotten  mines 
and  tempt  him  to  adventures  that  would  take  him  away  from 
her  for  ever  so  long.  Everywhere  he  would  meet  women, 
hateful  feminine  women  of  the  sort  who  are  opposed  to  Woman 
Suffrage,  who,  because  of  some  past  courtesy  of  his,  would 
throw  him  roses  and  try  to  make  him  watch  their  dancing  feet. 
She  sobbed  with  rage  as  she  perceived  how  different  from  her 
the  possession  of  this  past  made  him.  When  he  reached  Rio 
he  would  not  stand  by  the  quiet  bay  as  she  would  have  stood, 
enraptured  by  the  several  noble  darknesses  of  the  sky,  the 
mountains,  and  the  ship-starred  sea,  but  would  go  quickly  to 
his  house  on  the  hill,  not  hurrying,  but  showing  by  a  lightness 
in  his  walk,  by  a  furtive  vivacity  of  his  body,  that  he  was  in- 
volved in  some  private  system  of  exciting  memories.  He  would 
open  the  wrought-iron  gates  with  a  key  which  she  had  not 
known  he  possessed,  which  had  lain  close  to  him  in  one  of 
those  innumerable  pockets  that  men  have  in  their  clothes. 
With  perfect  knowledge  of  the  path,  he  would  step  silently 
through  the  garden,  where  flowers  run  wild  had  lost  their 
delicacy  and  grew  as  monstrous  candelabra  of  coarsened 
blooms  in  soil  greenly  feculent  with  weeds;  she  rejoiced  in  its 
devastation.  He  would  enter  the  hall  and  pick  his  steps  be- 
tween the  pools  of  wine  that  lay  black  on  the  marble  floor; 
he  would  tread  on  the  rosettes  of  corruption  that  had  once 
been  garlands  of  roses  hung  about  the  bronze  whale's  neck; 
he  would  look  down  on  the  white  limbs  of  the  shattered  Venus, 
and  look  up  and  listen  to  the  creaking  flight  of  the  birds  of 
prey  that  were  nesting  under  the  broken  roof ;  and  he  would 
smile  as  if  he  shared  a  secret  with  the  ruin  and  dissipation. 


158  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

His  smile  was  the  sun,  but  in  it  there  was  always  a  dark  ray 
of  secrecy.  All  his  experience  was  a  mockery  of  her  inexperi- 
ence. Her  clenched  fist  beat  her  brow,  which  had  become 
hot.  .  .  . 

All  that  day  her  mind  had  painfully  enacted  such  fantasies 
of  hatred  or  had  waited  blankly  for  this  moment  which  the 
old  man's  shuffling  step  was  now  bringing  towards  her.  She 
braced  herself,  though  she  did  not  look  up  from  the  table. 

"Nelly,  I've  brought  you  a  bit  rock  from  Ferguson's." 

She  gazed  cannily  at  the  white  paper  parcel.  It  was  the 
largest  box  he  had  ever  given  her ;  he  always  gave  her  sweeties 
when  Mr.  Philip  had  been  talking  against  her.  Ought  she 
therefore  to  deduce  from  the  unusual  size  that  he  had  been 
saying  something  unusually  cruel?  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
surely  no  one  could  ever  give  sweeties  to  a  girl  if  they  thought 
she  had  let  herself  be  kissed.  "You're  just  too  kind,  Mr. 
James,"  she  said  mournfully. 

"Take  out  a  stick  and  give  me  one.  What  for  did  I  have 
false  teeth  put  in  at  great  expense  if  it  was  not  that  I  might 
eat  rock  with  my  Nelly?  I'll  take  a  bit  of  the  peppermint. 
My  wife  is  a  leddy  and  will  not  let  me  eat  peppermint  in  my 
ain  hoose."  He  always  spoke  to  Ellen,  he  did  not  know  why, 
in  the  same  rough,  soft,  broad  Scots  tongue  that  he  had  talked 
with  his  mother  and  father  when  he  was  a  wee  boy  in  the 
carter's  cottage  on  the  Lang  Whang  of  the  Old  Lanark  Road, 
that  he  still  talked  to  his  cat  in  his  little  study  at  the  back  of  his 
square,  decent  residence.  "Ay,  that's  right.  But  lassie,  what 
ails  ye?  You're  looking  at  the  box  as  though  you'd  taken  a 
turn  at  the  genteel  and  become  an  Episcopalian  and  it  was 
Lent.  If  you've  lost  that  fine  sweet  tooth  of  yours  ye  must 
be  sickening  for  something." 

"Och,  me.  I'm  all  right,"  said  Ellen  drearily,  and  picked 
a  ginger  stick,  and  bit  it  joylessly ;  and  laid  it  down  again,  and 
pressed  her  hand  to  her  heart.  She  hearkened  to  the  racing 
beat  of  her  agony  with  eyes  grown  remote  and  lips  drawn  down 
at  the  corner  with  disgust,  like  a  woman  feeling  the  movements 
of  an  unwanted  child.  And  Mr.  Mactavish  James  was  so 
wrung  with  pity  for  the  wee  thing,  and  the  mature  dignity 
with  which  she  wore  her  misery,  and  the  next  moment  so 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  159 

glowing  with  pleasure  at  himself  for  this  generous  emotion, 
that  he  beamed  on  her  and  purred  silently,  "Ech,  the  poor 
bairn !  I  will  go  straight  to  the  point  and  make  her  mind 
easy."  He  wriggled  into  an  easier  position  in  his  chair,  re- 
adjusted his  glasses,  and  settled  down  to  enjoy  this  pleasant 
occupation  of  lifting  the  lid  off  her  distress,  stirring  it  up,  and 
distilling  from  it  and  the  drying  juices  of  his  heart  more  of 
this  creditable  pity. 

"Nelly,"  he  said  jocosely,  "I've  been  hearing  tales  about 
you." 

She  answered,  "I  know  it.    Mr.  Philip  has  told  me." 

"Ay,  I  thought  he  would,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James  com- 
fortably. He  could  also  make  a  pretty  good  guess  at  the  tem- 
per his  son  Philip  had  put  into  the  telling.  For  he  was  an 
old  man,  and  knew  that  a  young  man  in  love  may  not  be  the 
quiet,  religious  lover  pondering  how  a  minute's  kissing  under 
the  moon  can  sanctify  all  the  next  day's  daylight  that  the  poets 
describe  him.  He  may  be  inflamed  out  of  youth's  semblance 
by  jealousy,  and  decide  that  since  he  has  no  claws  to  tear  the 
female  flesh  as  it  deserves,  he  will  do  what  he  can  with  cruel 
words  and  treachery.  It  is  just  luck,  the  kind  of  man  one  hap- 
pens to  be  born.  Well,  it  was  just  luck.  .  .  . 

"He's  tremendous  excited  about  seeing  you  and  Mr.  Yaver- 
land,  Nelly." 

Her  eyes  were  blue  fire.  "Och,  'twas  him  that  saw  me !  He 
said  it  was  a  client." 

He  covered  his  mouth  with  his  hand,  but  decided  to  give  his 
son  away.  All  his  life  he  had  been  rejecting  the  claims  of 
beauty  and  gentle  things,  and  he  could  be  sure  that  his  well- 
brought-up  family  would  go  on  doing  it  after  he  was  in  his 
grave.  Over  this  one  little  point,  which  did  not  really  matter, 
he  could  afford  to  be  handsome.  "Aye,  'twas  Mr.  Philip  that 
saw  you,"  he  owned  easily,  and  swerved  his  head  before  the 
long  look,  pansy-soft  with  gratitude,  that  she  now  turned  on 
him.  The  girl  was  so  inveterately  inclined  to  dilate  on  the 
pleasant  things  of  life  that  his  generosity  in  admitting  that  his 
son  was  a  liar,  and  thus  assuring  her  that  her  shame  had  not 
been  as  public  as  she  had  supposed,  quite  wiped  out  all  her 
other  emotions.  She  fairly  glowed  about  it;  and  at  that  the 


160  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

old  man  felt  curiously  ashamed,  as  if  he  had  gained  a  child's 
prattling  thanks  by  giving  it  a  bad  sixpence,  although  he  could 
not  see  what  he  had  done  that  was  not  all  right.  He  rubbed 
his  hands  and  tried  to  kindle  a  jollity  by  crying,  "Well,  what 
would  I  do  but  tell  you?  If  I  hadn't,  ye'd  have  been  running 
about  distributing  black  eyes  among  my  clients  just  on  sus- 
picion, ye  fierce  wee  randy!" 

"Och,  you  make  fun  of  me !"  She  smiled,  palely,  and 

gnawed  the  ginger  stick,  her  jaw  being  so  impeded  by  her 
desire  to  cry  that  she  could  not  bite  it. 

"Poor  bairn !  Poor  bairn !"  he  sighed,  and  his  pity  for  the 
little  thing  seemed  to  him  so  moving,  so  completely  in  the  vein 
of  the  best  Scottish  pathos,  that  he  continued  to  gaze  at  her 
and  enjoy  his  own  emotion,  until  a  wryness  of  her  mouth  made 
him  fear  that  unless  he  hurried  up  and  got  to  the  point  she 
would  rush  from  the  room  and  leave  him  without  this  delicious 
occupation.  So  he  went  on,  speaking  cosily.  "I  thought  little 
of  it.  You  are  a  good  lassie,  Nelly,  and  I  can  trust  you.  I 
know  that  fine.  Sometimes  I'  think  it  is  a  great  peety  that 
Philip  was  not  born  a  wee  girl,  for  he  would  have  grown  up 
into  a  fine  maiden  aunt.  He  is  that  particular  about  his  sisters 
you  would  not  believe.  Though  losh !  he  has  no  call  for  anx- 
iety, for  they're  none  of  them  bonny." 

Ellen  was  pulling  herself  together,  trying  to  take  his  lack  of 
censure  as  a  matter  of  course  and  choking  back  the  tears  of 
relief.  "I'd  not  say  that,"  she  said  in  a  strangled  voice.  "Miss 
Chrissie  isn't  so  bad,  though  with  those  teeth  I  think  she  would 
be  wiser  to  avoid  looking  arch.  Och,  Mr.  James,  what's  come 
to  you  ?"  For  he  was  rolling  with  a  great  groundswell  of  mer- 
riment, and  slapping  his  thigh  and  chuckling.  "The  things  the 
simplest  woman  can  say !  No  need  for  practice  in  boodwars 
and  draring-rooms !  It  comes  natural!"  She  looked  at  him 
with  wrinkled  brows  and  smiling  mouth,  sure  that  he  was  not 
being  unkind,  but  wondering  why  he  laughed,  and  murmured, 
"Mr.  James,  Mr.  James!"  It  flashed  on  her  suddenly  what 
he  meant,  and  she  jumped  up  from  her  seat  and  cried  through 
exasperated  laughter,  "Och,  men  are  mean  things!  I  see 
what's  in  your  mind !  But  indeed  I  did  not  intend  to  be  catty ! 
You  must  admit,  though  she's  your  own  daughter,  that  Miss 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  161 

Chrissie's  teeth  are  on  the  long  side !  That's  all  I  meant.  Och, 
Mr.  James,  I  wish  you  would  not  be  such  a  tease !"  However, 
he  continued  to  laugh  bellyingly,  and  she  started  to  run  round 
the  table  as  if  to  assail  him  with  childish  tuggings  and  shak- 
ings, but  to  leave  her  hands  free  she  popped  the  ginger  stick  into 
her  mouth  like  a  cigarette,  and  was  immediately  distracted  to 
gravity  by  important  considerations.  "What  am  I  doing,  eating 
ginger  when  I  hate  the  stuff?  I'll  nip  off  the  end  I've  been 
at  and  put  it  back  for  mother.  She  just  loves  it,  dear  knows 
why,  the  nasty  hot  thing.  I'll  have  one  of  the  pink  ones. 
They've  no  great  flavour,  but  I  like  the  colour.  .  .  ." 

While  she  bent  over  the  box,  her  mind  and  fingers  busy 
among  the  layers,  the  old  man  turned  his  bleared  eyes  upon 
her  and  wondered  at  her,  and  rejoiced  in  her  variousness  as  he 
had  not  thought  he  would  rejoice  over  a  useless  thing.  For 
she  had  altered  utterly  in  the  last  few  seconds.  When  he  had 
come  into  the  room  she  had  been  a  tiny  cowering  thing  of 
soft  piteous  gazes  and  miserable  silences,  like  a  sick  puppy, 
too  sick  to  whimper ;  now  she  was  almost  soulless  in  her  beauty 
and  well-being,  and  as  little  a  matter  for  pity  as  a  daffodil  in 
sunshine.  She  was  completely,  absorbedly  young  and  greedy 
and  happy.  The  fear  that  life  was  really  horrid  had  obscured 
her  bright  colours  like  a  cobweb,  but  now  she  was  radiant 
again ;  it  was  as  if  a  wind  had  blown  through  her  hair,  which 
always  changed  with  her  moods  as  a  cat's  coat  changes  with 
the  weather,  and  had  been  lank  since  morning.  He  was  not 
used  to  variable  women.  His  two  wives,  Annie  and  Christian, 
had  always  looked  much  the  same.  He  remembered  that  when 
he  went  in  to  see  Aggie  as  she  lay  in  her  coffin  he  had  exam- 
ined her  face  very  carefully  because  he  had  heard  that  people's 
faces  altered  when  they  were  dead  and  fell  into  expressions  that 
revealed  the  truth  about  their  inner  lives;  but  she  did  not 
seem  to  have  changed  at  all,  anr1  was  still  looking  sensible. 

To  keep  the  situation  moving  he  drawled  teasingly,  "Och, 
you  women,  you  women!  Born  with  the  tongues  of  cats  you 
are,  every  one  of  ye,  and  with  the  advawnce  of  ceevilisation 
ye're  developing  the  claws!  There  was  a  fine  piece  in  the 
Scotsman  this  morning  about  one  of  your  Suffragettes  stand- 
ing on  the  roof  of  a  town  hall  and  behaving  as  a  wild  cat 


162  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

would  think  shame  to,  skirling  at  Mr.  Asquith  through  a  sky- 
light and  throwing  slates  at  the  polis  that  came  to  fetch  her. 
Aw,  verra  nice,  verra  ladylike,  I'm  sure." 

"Well,  why  shouldn't  she?    Yon  miserable  Asquith " 

"Asquith's  not  miserable.  He's  a  good  man.  He's  an  Eng- 
lishman, but  he  sits  for  Fife." 

"Anyway,  it  was  Charlotte  Marsh  that  did  it.  And  if  she's 
not  a  lady,  who  is?  Her  photograph's  given  away  with  this 
week's  Votes  for  Women.  She's  a  beautiful  girl." 

"I  doubt  it,  Nelly." 

"I'll  bring  the  photo  then !" 

"Beautiful  girls  get  married,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James 
guilefully,  watching  for  her  temper  to  send  up  rockets.  "What 
for  is  she  not  married  if  she  is  so  beautiful?" 

"Because  she's  more  particular  than  your  wife  was !"  barked 
Ellen,  admitting  reluctantly  as  he  gasped  and  chuckled,  "Yon's 
not  my  own.  I  heard  Mary  Gawthorpe  say  that  at  an  open- 
air  meeting.  She  is  a  wonder,  yon  wee  thing.  She  has  such 
a  power  of  repartee  that  the  interrupters  have  to  be  carried 
out  on  stretchers." 

"Ah,  ye're  all  impudent  wee  besoms  thegither,"  said  Mr. 
Mactavish  James,  and  set  his  eyes  wide  on  her  face.  From 
something  throbbing  in  her  speech  he  hoped  that  the  spring 
of  her  distress  had  not  yet  run  dry. 

"Why  are  you  not  more  respectful  to  the  Suffragettes? 
You're  polite  enough  to  the  Covenanters,  and  yet  they  fought 
and  killed  people,  while  we  haven't  killed  even  a  policeman, 
though  there's  a  constable  in  the  Grange  district  whose  jugular 
vein  I  would  like  fine  to  sever  with  my  teeth  for  what  he  said 
to  me  when  I  was  chalking  pavements.  If  you  don't  admire 
us  you  shouldn't  admire  the  Covenanters." 

"The  Covenanters  were  fighting  for  religion,"  he  murmured, 
keeping  his  eyes  on  her  face. 

"So's  this  religion,  and  it's  of  some  practical  use,  moreover," 
she  answered  listlessly.  She  drew  her  hands  down  her  face, 
threw  up  her  arms,  and  breathed  a  fatigued,  shuddering  sigh. 
The  conversation  had  begun  to  seem  to  her  intolerably  insipid 
because  they  were  not  talking  of  Yaverland. 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  moved  distractedly  about  the  room, 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  163 

and  then,  with  a  purposefulness  that  put  into  his  stare  that 
terrified  cold  enmity  with  which  the  sane  look  upon  even  the 
beloved  mad,  she  swept  two  rulers  off  her  desk  on  to  the  floor. 
But  she  knelt  down  and  set  them  cross-wise,  and  then  straight- 
ened herself  and  crooked  her  arms  above  her  head,  and  began 
to  dance  a  sword-dance.  Even  her  filial  relations  to  him  hardly 
justified  such  a  puncture  of  office  discipline,  and  he  sat  blowing 
at  it  until  he  saw  that  this  was  a  new  phase  of  her  so  enter- 
taining misery.  It  is  always  absurd  when  that  pert  and  feroci- 
ous dance,  invented  by  an  unsensuous  race  inordinately  and 
mistakenly  vain  of  its  knees,  is  performed  by  a  graceful  girl; 
and  Ellen  added  to  that  incongruity  by  dancing  languorously, 
passionately.  It  was  like  hearing  the  wrong  words  sung  to  a 
familiar  tune.  And  her  face  was  at  discord  with  both  the 
dance  and  her  performance  of  it,  for  she  was  fixedly  regard- 
ing someone  who  was  not  there.  "She  is  fey !"  he  thought 
tolerantly,  and  gloated  over  this  fresh  display  of  her  unhap- 
piness  and  his  pity,  though  a  corner  of  his  mind  was  busy 
hoping  that  Mr.  Morrison  would  not  come  in.  It  was  unusual 
in  Edinburgh  for  a  solicitor  (at  any  rate  in  a  sound  firm) 
to  sit  and  watch  his  typist  dancing. 

But  soon  she  stopped  dancing.  Her  need  to  speak  of  Yaver- 
land  took  away  her  breath. 

She  slouched  across  the  room  to  the  window,  laid  her  cheek 
to  the  glass,  and  said  rapidly,  "It  is  bad  weather.  It  is  bad 
weather  here  an  awful  lot  of  the  time.  Mr.  Yaverland  says 
there  is  a  place  in  Peru  where  it  is  always  spring.  That  would 
be  bonny."  She  felt  relieved  and  warmed  as  soon  as  she  had 
mentioned  his  name,  and  sat  down  easily  in  the  window-seat 
and  smiled  back  at  the  old  man. 

"Ehem!  So  this^  Mr.  Yaverland  has  surveyed  mankind 
from  China  to  Peru,  as  the  great  Dr.  Johnson  says." 

But  she  could  not  speak  of  Yaverland  again  so  soon.  She 
tried  to  make  time  by  wrangling.  "Why  do  you  call  him  the 
great  Dr.  Johnson?  He  was  just  a  rude  old  thing." 

"He  was  a  man  of  sense,  lassie,  a  man  of  sense." 

"What's  sense?"  she  cried,  and  flung  wide  her  arms.  Her 
body  pricked  with  a  general  emotion  that  was  not  relevant  to 
the  words  she  spoke,  and  indeed  she  was  not  quite  aware  what 


164<  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

those  were.  "Sense  isn't  sitting  in  your  chair  all  day  and 
ruining  the  coats  of  your — of  your  digestion  drinking  too 
much  tea  and  contradicting  everybody  and  being  rude  to  Mrs. 
Thrale  when  the  poor  body  married  again." 

"It  was  a  f ule's  marriage,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James ;  "the 
widow  of  a  substantial  man  taking  up  wi'  an  Italian  fiddler." 

"Marriage  with  one  man's  no  worse  than  marriage  with 
another,  the  way  they  all  are,"  said  Ellen  darkly,  and  got  back 
to  her  argument.  "And  hating  the  Scotch  and  democracy, 
and  saying  blunt  foolish  things  as  if  they  were  blunt  wise 
ones — that's  not  sense.  And  if  it  were,  what's  the  good  of 
living  to  be  sensible?  It's  like  living  to  have  five  fingers  on 
your  hand.  And  life's  so  short!  Mr.  James,  does  it  never 
worry  you  dreadfully  that  life  is  so  short?  I  wonder  how  we 
all  bear  up  about  it.  One  ought  to  live  for  adventure.  I  want 
to  go  away,  right  away.  There  are  such  lots  of  lovely  places 
where  there  are  palms,  and  people  get  romantically  shot,  and 
there's  a  town  somewhere  where  poppies  grow  on  the  roofs 
of  mosques.  I  would  like  to  see  that.  And  queer  people — 
masked  Touaregs " 

"Lassie,  you  are  blethering,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James, 
"this  is  a  pairfect  salad  of  foreign  pairts." 

It  had  to  come  out.  "Mr.  Yaverland  says  Peru  is  lovely. 
He  has  been  both  sides  of  the  Andes.  He  liked  Peru.  There 
are  silver  mines  at  Iquique  and  etairnal  spring  at  the  place 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten.  Funny  that  I  should  forget 
the  name  of  the  one  place  on  airth  where  there  is  etairnal 
spring!  If  I  had  all  the  money  in  the  world  I  would  not  be 
able  to  go  there  because  I  have  forgotten  its  name!"  She 
laughed  sobbingly,  and  went  on.  "And  he's  been  in  Brazil. 
He  lived  for  a  time  in  Rio  de  Janeiro."  t  She  stared  fixedly 
at  her  mental  image  of  the  fateful  house  where  there  was  a 
broken  statue  on  a  bier,  shook  herself,  and  went  on.  "And 
he's  travelled  in  the  forest.  He's  seen  streams  covered  with 
the  big  leaves  of  Victoria  Regia  like  they  have  it  in  the  Bo- 
tanical Gardens,  and  egrets  standing  on  the  bank,  and  better 
there  than  in  ladies'  hats.  I  wonder  if  I  would  be  a  fool  if  I 
had  the  money? — if  I  would  wear  dead  things  on  my  head? 
But  indeed  there  are  ways  I  think  I  would  always  be  nice, 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  165 

however  rich  I  was — ways  that  don't  affect  me  very  much,  so 
that  they're  no  sacrifice.  And  he's  seen  lots  of  things.  Sloths, 
which  I  always  thought  were  just  metaphors.  And  ant-eaters, 
and  alligators,  and  jaguars.  And " 

"If  you  go  to  London,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James,  "you'll 
be  losing  your  heart  to  a  keeper  at  the  Zoo." 

"Who's  losing  their  heart  to  anybody  ?"  she  asked  peevishly. 
"And  you  needn't  sneer.  He's  done  lots  else  besides  just 
seeing  animals.  Once  he  steered  a  ship  in  the  South  Seas  for 
two  days  and  two  nights  when  the  crew  were  down  with  the 
New  Guinea  fever.  And  another  time  he  was  working  at 
a  mine  in  Andalusia.  The  miners  went  on  strike.  He  and 
some  other  men  put  up  barricades  and  took  guns.  They  de- 
fended the  place.  He  is  the  first  man  I  have  ever  known  who 
did  such  things.  And  they  come  natural  to  him.  He  thinks 
no  more  of  them  than  your  son,"  she  said  nastily,  "thinks  of 
playing  a  round  on  the  Gullane  links." 

"Imphm.  I  wonder  what  he's  been  doing  traiking  about 
like  this.  Rolling  stones  gather  no  moss,  I've  heard." 

Her  eyes  blazed,  then  narrowed.  "Oh,  make  no  mistake! 
He  earns  a  lot  of  money.  He  can  beat  you  even  at  your  own 
game." 

Mr.  Mactavish  James  tee-heed,  but  did  not  like  it,  for  she 
was  looking  round  the  room  as  if  it  were  a  hated  prison  and 
all  that  was  done  in  it  contemptible ;  and  these  things  were  his 
life.  "Well,  you  know  best.  And  what's  this  paragon  like? 
I've  not  seen  the  fellow." 

"He's  a  lovely  pairson,"  she  said  sullenly. 

He  began  to  loathe  these  two  young  people,  who  were  all 
that  he  and  his  stock  could  not  be,  who  were  going  to  do  the 
things  his  age  could  not  do.  "Ah,  well !  Ah,  well !"  he  sighed, 
with  a  spurious  shrewd  melancholy.  "He'll  be  like  me  when 
he's  old,  Ellen;  all  old  men  are  alike." 

She  looked  at  him  coldly  and  said,  "He  will  not." 

Her  brows  were  heavy  and  the  hand  she  held  at  her  bosom 
was  clenched.  The  rain  was  beating  on  the  window-panes. 
The  fire  seemed  diluted  by  the  day's  dampness ;  and  there  was 
a  chill  spreading  through  his  mind  as  if  they  had  been  debating 
fundamental  things  and  the  argument  had  turned  unanswerably 


166  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

to  his  disadvantage.  He  twisted  in  his  seat  and  looked  sharply 
at  her,  and  though  the  mirror  of  his  mind  was  apt  to  tilt  away 
from  the  disagreeable,  he  perceived  that  she  was  regarding  him 
and  the  prudent  destiny  he  had  chosen  with  a  scorn  more  un- 
appeasable than  any  appetite;  and  that  the  destiny  she  was 
choosing  with  this  snarling  intensity  was  so  glorious  that  it 
justified  her  scorn.  He  felt  a  conviction,  which  had  the  vague 
quality  of  melancholy,  that  he  was  morally  insolvent,  and  a 
suspicion,  which  had  the  acute  quality  of  pain,  that  his  finan- 
cial solvency  was  not  such  a  great  thing  after  all.  For  Ellen 
looked  like  an  angry  queen  as  well  as  an  angry  angel.  It 
seemed  possible  that  these  young  people  were  not  only  going  to 
have  a  mansion  in  heaven,  but  would  have  a  large  house  on 
earth  as  well,  and  these  two  establishments  made  his  single 
establishment  in  Moray  Place  seem  not  so  satisfactory  as  he 
had  always  thought  it.  These  people  were  going  to  take  their 
fill  of  beauty  and  delight  and  all  the  unchafferable  things  he 
had  denied  himself  that  he  might  pursue  success,  and  they 
were  going  to  take  their  fill  of  success  too !  It  was  not  fair. 
He  thought  of  their  good  fortune  in  being  born  strong  and 
triumphant  as  if  it  were  a  piece  of  rapacity,  and  tried  to  wrig- 
gle out  of  this  moment  which  compelled  him  to  regard  them 
with  respect  by  reversing  the  intentional,  enjoyed  purity  of 
relationship  with  her  and  finding  a  lewd  amusement  in  the 
fierceness  which  was  so  plainly  an  aspect  of  desire.  But  that 
meant  moving  outside  the  orbit  of  dignity;  and  he  knew  that 
when  a  man  does  that  he  gives  himself  for  ever  into  the  hands 
of  those  who  behold  him.  So  he  worked  back  to  the  position 
of  the  rich,  kind  old  man  stooping  to  protect  the  little  helpless 
working-girl. 

He  pushed  the  box  of  sweets  across  the  table,  and  said  in 
a  tender  and  offended  voice,  "You're  not  eating  your  sweets, 
Nelly.  I  hoped  to  give  you  pleasure  when  I  bought  them." 

One  would  always  get  her  that  way. 

Someone  was  being  hurt.  Immediately  she  had  the  soft 
breast  of  the  dove.  "Oh,  Mr.  James !" 

"I  wish  I  could  give  you  more  pleasure,"  he  went  on.  "But 
there !  I've  been  able  to  do  little  enough  for  you.  Well  do  I 
know  it" 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  167 

"You've  done  a  lot  for  me.    You've  been  so  good." 

"It's  a  pity  we  should  have  fallen  out  over  a  stranger.  But 
I  know  I  am  too  free  with  my  tongue." 

"Oh,  Mr.  James !" 

"Never  mind,  lassie.  I'm  only  an  old  man,  and  you're 
young;  you  must  go  your  own  way " 

"Oh,  Mr.  James!"  She  rose  and  ran  round  the  table  to 
his  side ;  and  at  the  close  sight  of  her,  excited  and  yet  muted 
with  pity,  brilliant  as  sunset  but  soft  as  light  rain,  the  honest 
thing  in  him  forgot  the  spurious  scene  he  was  carpentering. 
He  exclaimed  solemnly,  "Nelly,  you  are  very  beautiful." 

She  was  startled.    "Me,  beautiful?" 

"Aye,"  he  said,  "beautiful." 

For  a  moment  she  pondered  over  it  almost  stupidly.  Then 
she  put  her  hand  on  Mr.  James's  shoulder  and  shook  him ;  now 
that  her  sexual  feelings  were  focussed  on  one  man  she  treated 
all  other  men  with  a  sexless  familiarity  that  to  those  who  did 
not  understand  might  have  seemed  shameless  and  a  little  mad. 
"Am  I  beautiful?"  she  asked  searchingly. 

"How  many  times  do  you  want  me  to  say  it?"  he  said. 

"But  how  beautiful?"  she  pursued.  "Like  a  picture  in  the 
National  Gallery?  Or  like  one  of  those  actresses?  Now  isn't 
that  a  queer  thing?  I'm  all  for  art  as  a  general  thing,  but 
I'd  much  rather  be  like  an  actress.  Tell  me,  which  am  I 
like?" 

"You're  like  both".     That's  where  you  score." 

She  caught  her  breath  with  a  sob.  "You're  not  laughing 
at  me?" 

"Get  up  on  your  chair  and  look  in  the  glass  over  the  mantel- 
piece." 

She  stepped  up,  and  with  a  flush  and  a  raising  of  the  chin 
as  if  she  were  doing  something  much  more  radical  than  look- 
ing in  a  mirror,  as  if,  indeed,  she  were  stripping  herself  quite 
naked,  she  faced  her  image. 

"You've  never  looked  at  yourself  before,"  said  the  old  man. 

"  'Deed  I  have,"  she  snapped.  "How  do  you  think  I  put 
my  hat  on  straight?" 

"It  never  is,"  he  retorted,  and  repeated  grimly  and  exult- 
ingly,  "You've  never  looked  at  yourself  before." 


168  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

She  looked  obliquely  at  her  reflection  and  ran  her  hands 
ashamedly  up  and  down  her  body,  and  tried  for  a  word  and 
failed. 

"Are  you  not  beautiful?"  he  said. 

"Imphm.  There's  no  denying  I'm  effective,"  she  admitted 
tartly,  and  stepped  down  and  stood  for  a  moment  shivering  as 
if  she  had  done  something  distasteful.  And  then  climbed  on  to 
the  chair  again.  "In  evening  dress,  like  the  one  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt  wore  in  La  Dame  aux  Camelias,  I  dare  say  I  could  look 
all  right  with  a  fan — a  big  fan  of  ostrich  feathers."  This  time 
she  faced  the  image  directly  and  almost  gloatingly,  as  if  it  were 
food.  "But  considering  my  circumstances,  that  is  a  wild  hy- 
pothesis. I  suppose  ...  I  ...  am  ...  all  right.  But  I 
suppose  I'm  just  good-looking  for  a  private  person.  I'd  look 
the  plainest  of  the  plain  beside  Zena  or  Phyllis  Dare.  Would 
I  not?  Would  I  not?" 

"You'd  look  plain  beside  no  one  but  Venus,"  said  Mr.  Mac- 
tavish  James,  "and  her  you'd  better  with  your  tongue." 

"Ah!"  She  breathed  deeply,  as  if  at  last  she  drank.  "So 
it  doesn't  matter  my  chin  being  so  wee  ?  I've  always  hankered 
after  a  chin  like  Carson's.  I  think  it  makes  one  looked  up  to, 
irrespective  of  one's  merits.  But  if  what  you  say  is  true  I've 
no  call  to  worry.  I'll  do  as  I  am."  She  shot  an  intense  scowl- 
ing glance  at  the  old  man.  "You're  sure  I'll  do?" 

"Ay,  lass,  you'll  do,"  he  answered  gravely. 

She  burst  into  a  light  peal  of  laughter,  as  different  from 
her  usual  mirth  as  if  she  had  been  changed  from  gold  to  silver. 
"Oh  dear!  Oh  dear!"  she  cried,  her  voice  suddenly  high- 
pitched  and  femininely  gay.  "What  nonsense  we're  talking! 
Do — for  what?  It's  all  pairfectly  ridiculous — as  if  looks  mat- 
tered one  way  or  another !"  An  animation  of  so  physical  a 
nature  had  come  on  her  that  her  heart  was  beating  almost  too 
quickly  for  speech,  and  her  body,  being  uncontrolled  by  her 
spirit,  abandoned  itself  to  entirely  uncharacteristic  gestures 
which  were  but  abstract  designs  drawn  by  her  womanhood. 
She  lifted  her  face  towards  the  mirror  and  pouted  her  lips 
mockingly,  as  if  she  knew  that  some  spirit  buried  in  its  glassy 
depths  desired  to  kiss  them  and  could  not.  She  stood  on  her 
toes  on  the  hard  wooden  seat,  so  that  it  looked  as  if  she  were 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  169 

wearing  high  heels,  and  her  hands,  which  were  less  like  paws 
than  they  had  ever  been  before,  because  she  was  holding  them 
with  consciousness  of  her  fingers'  extreme  length,  took  the 
skirt  of  her  frock  and  pulled  it'  into  panniers.  She  wished 
that  she  were  clad  in  silk !  But  that  lent  no  wistf  ulness  to  her 
face,  which  now  glittered  with  a  solemn  and  joyful  rapacity, 
for  her  unconscious  being  had  divined  that  there  were  before 
her  many  victories  to  be  gained  wholly  without  sweat  of  the 
will.  "Ah !"  she  sighed,  and  wondered  at  her  over-contentment ; 
and  then  went  on  with  her  delicate  shrill  chatter,  glowing  and 
holding  herself  with  a  fine  frivolity  that  made  it  seem  almost 
as  if  she  were  clad  in  silk,  and  passing  from  flowerlike  love- 
liness to  loveliness. 

"It's  a  pity  Mr.  Yaverland  cannot  see  you  now,"  said  the 
old  man,  half  from  honest  jocosity  and  half  from  an  itch  to 
bring  the  creature  back  to  this  interesting  suffering  of  hers. 

Gasping  with  laughter,  though  she  kept  her  eyes  gravely  and 
steadily  on  her  beauty,  she  answered,  "Yes,  it  is  a  pity !  It  is 
a  great  pity!  He's  very  handsome  too,  you  know.  We'd 
make  a  bonny  pair!  Oh  dear,  oh  dear!" 

Mr.  James  sat  up.  "What's  that?  What  is  it  you're  say- 
ing ?  Hec,  you're  talking  of  making  a  pair,  are  you  ?"  Amuse- 
ment always  made  his  voice  sound  gross.  "Has  he  asked  you 
to  marry  him  then,  ye  shy  wee  besom?" 

She  swung  round  on  her  toes,  her  face  magic  with  passion 
and  mischief.  "Give  me  time,  Mr.  James,  give  me  time!" 
she  cried,  and  her  head  fell  back  on  her  long  white  throat, 
while  her  laughter  jetted  in  shaking,  shy,  thin  gusts  like  a 
blackbird's  song.  And  then  she  ceased.  Her  head  fell  for- 
ward. Her  gown  dropped  from  her  outstretched  hands,  which 
she  pressed  against  her  bosom.  A  second  past  she  had  filled 
with  spring  this  office  damp  with  autumn;  now  she  made  it 
more  asperous  and  grey  than  had  November,  for  her  season 
had  changed  to  the  extremest  winter.  She  pressed  her  hands 
so  hard  against  her  breast  and  in  a  voice  weak  as  if  she  were 
very  cold  she  said,  "Oh,  God!  Oh,  God!" 

"Eh!"  gaped  Mr.  James. 

She  had  made  a  fool  of  herself.  She  had  said  dreadful 
things.  She  had  boasted  about  something  that  could  not  come 


170  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

true,  that  would  be  horrible  if  it  did.  Her  face  became  chalk 
white  with  such  agony  as  only  the  young  can  feel. 

Mr.  James's  gouty  leg  crackled  out  pains  as  he  tried  to  rise, 
and  he  had  to  sink  back  in  his  chair  and  look  up  at  her  through 
the  vibrating  silence,  whispering,  "Nelly,  my  dear  lass." 

At  that  she  shot  at  him  such  a  cold  sidelong  glance  as  one 
might  shoot  at  a  stranger  who  has  let  one  know  that  he  has 
overheard  an  intimacy,  and  with  movements  at  once  clumsy 
and  precise  she  got  down  from  her  chair  and  put  it  back  at 
the  table.  She  stood  quite  still,  with  her  hands  resting  on  it, 
her  face  assuming  a  mean  and  shrewish  expression.  She  was 
remembering  a  woman  who  had  been  rude  to  her  mother,  a 
schoolfellow  of  Mrs.  Melville's,  who  had  married  as  well  as 
she  had  married  badly,  and  had  allowed  consciousness  of  that 
fact  to  colour  her  manner  when  they  had  run  against  each 
other  in  Princes  Street.  Ellen  was  trying  to  imitate  the  ex- 
pression by  which  this  bourgeoise  had  given  her  mother  to 
understand  that  the  interview  need  not  long  be  continued.  She 
caught  it,  she  thought,  but  it  did  not  really  help.  There  was 
still  this  pressure  of  a  flood  of  tears  behind  her  eyes.  She 
looked  out  of  the  window  and  exclaimed,  "It's  getting  dark!" 
She  said  it  peevishly,  as  if  the  sun's  descent  was  the  last  piece 
of  carelessness  on  the  part  of  a  negligent  universe.  And  as 
her  eye  explored  the  dusk  and  saw  that  the  bright  spheres 
round  the  lamps  were  infested  by  wandering  ghosts  of  wind- 
blown humidity  she  thought  of  her  walk  home  up  the  Mound 
and  what  it  would  be  like  on  this  night  of  gusts  and  damp. 
"That  puts  the  lid  on!"  her  heart  said  bitterly,  and  the  first 
tears  oozed.  Somehow  she  must  go  at  once.  She  said  thinly 
and  quaveringly,  "It's  getting  dark.  Surely  it's  time  I  was 
away  home?" 

There  was  a  clock  on  the  mantelpiece  which  told  it  was 
not  yet  half-past  four,  but  they  both  looked  away  from  it. 
"Ay,"  said  Mr.  Mactavish  James  cheerfully,  "you  must  run 
away  home.  I'll  not  have  it  said  I  drive  a  bairn  to  death  with 
late  hours.  Good  evening,  lassie."  He  was  so  terrified  by  the 
intensity  of  her  emotion  that  he  had  given  up  playing  his  fish. 
There  stabbed  a  question  through  his  heart.  Had  Isabella 
Kingan  suffered  thus? 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  171 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  James,"  she  said  brightly,  and  went 
out  into  the  hall  letting  the  door  swing  to,  and  pulled  on  her 
coat  and  tam-o'-shanter  in  the  darkness.  Now  that  it  did  not 
matter  if  she  cried,  she  did  not  feel  nearly  so  much  like  crying. 
"That's  the  way  things  always  are,"  she  snorted,  and  began 
to  hum  the  Marseillaise  defiantly  as  she  buttoned  up  her  coat. 
But  though  she  was  not  seen  here,  she  was  not  alone.  There 
pressed  against  her  the  unexpungeable  fact  of  her  disgrace. 
Her  eyes,  mad  with  distress,  with  too  much  weeping,  printed 
on  the  blackness  the  figure  of  the  man  with  whom  she  had  as- 
sociated herself  in  this  awful  way  by  that  idiot  capering  before 
the  glass,  by  those  maniac  words.  With  rapture  and  horror 
she  saw  his  dark-lidded  eyes  with  their  brilliant  yet  secretive 
gaze,  the  lips  that  were  parted  yet  not  loose,  that  his  reserve 
would  not  permit  to  close  lest  by  their  setting  strangers  should 
see  whether  he  was  smiling  or  moody;  she  remembered  the 
bluish  bloom  that  had  been  on  his  chin  the  first  night  she  ever 
saw  him.  At  that  she  brought  her  clenched  fist  down  on  her 
other  palm  and  sobbed  with  hate.  He  had  brought  all  this 
upon  her. 

And  hearing  that,  Mr.  Mactavish  James  hobbled  towards  the 
door,  purring  endearments.  He  was  better  now.  That  an- 
guished melody  of  speculation  as  to  Isabella  Kingan's  heart  he 
had  played  over  again  with  the  tempo  rubato  and  the  pressed 
loud  pedal  of  sentimentality,  and  it  was  now  no  more  than 
agreeably  affecting  as  a  Scotch  song  .  .  .  being  kind  to  the 
wean  for  the  sake  of  her  who  was  my  sweethairt  in  auld  lang 
syne.  .  .  . 

She  was  so  blind  with  hate  of  Yaverland  that  she  was  not 
aware  of  his  presence  till  he  bent  over  her,  whinneying  in  the 
slow,  complacent  accents  of  Scottish  sentiment,  "Nelly,  Nelly, 
what  ails  ye,  lassie  ?  Nothing's  happened !  I'll  put  it  all 
right." 

"Yes,  of  course  nothing's  happened!"  she  snapped,  her 
hand  on  the  doorknob.  "Who  said  it  had?"  And  then  his 
words,  "I'll  put  it  all  right,"  began  to  torment  her.  They 
threatened  her  that  her  disgrace  was  not  to  end  here,  that  he 
might  talk  about  it,  that  the  thing  might  well  be  with  her  to 
her  grave,  that  she  had  done  for  herself,  that  now  and  forever 


172  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

she  had  made  her  life  not  worth  living.  "Och,  away  with  it !" 
she  almost  screamed.  "You've  driven  me  so  that  I  don't  know 
what  I'm  doing,  you  and  your  nasty  wee  black  poodle  of  a 
son!" 

He  had  to  laugh.  "Nelly,  Nelly,  he's  as  God  made 
him!" 

"Ye  shelve  your  responsibility!"  she  said,  and  breaking  im- 
mediately into  the  bitterest  tears  of  this  long  day  of  weeping, 
flung  out  of  the  door  of  this  loathed  place,  to  which  she  re- 
membered with  agony  as  she  ran  down  the  stairs  she  must 
return  to-morrow  to  earn  her  living. 

in 

More  than  anything  else  she  hated  people  to  see  her  when 
she  had  been  crying,  yet  she  was  sorry  that  the  little  house  was 
dark.  And  though  she  had  seen,  as  she  came  in  through  the 
square,  that  there  were  no  lights  in  any  window,  and  though 
the  sitting-room  door  was  ajar,  and  showed  a  cold  hearth  and 
furniture  looking  huddled  and  low-spirited  as  furniture  does 
when  dusk  comes  and  there  is  no  company,  she  stood  in  the 
hall  and  called,  "Mother!  Mother!"  She  more  than  half 
remembered  as  she  called  that  her  mother  had  that  morning 
said  something  about  spending  the  afternoon  with  an  old  friend 
at  Trinity.  But  she  cried  out  again,  "Mother !  Mother !"  and 
lest  the  cry  should  sound  piteous  sent  it  out  angrily.  There 
was  no  answer  but  the  complaining  rattle  of  a  window  at  the 
top  of  the  house,  which,  like  all  dwellings  of  the  very  poor, 
was  perpetually  ailing  in  its  fitments ;  and,  letting  her  wet 
things  fall  to  her  feet,  she  moved  desolately  into  the  kitchen. 
The  gleam  of  the  caddies  along  the  mantelpiece,  the  handles 
that  protruded  like  stiff  tails  over  the  saucepan-shelf  above 
the  sink,  struck  her  as  looking  queer  and  amusing  in  this 
twilight,  and  then  made  her  remember  that  she  had  had  no 
lunch  and  was  now  very  hungry,  so  she  briskly  set  a  light  to 
the  gas-ring  and  put  on  the  kettle.  She  had  the  luck  to  find 
in  the  breadpan  a  loaf  far  newer  than  it  was  their  thrifty  habit 
to  eat,  and  carried  it  back  to  the  table,  finding  just  such  de- 
licious pleasure  in  digging  her  fingers  into  its  sides  as  she 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  173 

found  in  standing  on  her  heels  on  new  asphalt;  but  turned 
her  head  sharply  on  an  invisible  derider. 

"I  do  mean  to  commit  suicide,  though  I  am  getting  my 
tea!"  she  snapped.  "Indeed,  I  never  meant  to  come  home  at 
all;  I  found  myself  running  up  the  Mound  from  sheer  force 
of  habit.  Did  you  never  hear  that  human  beings  are  creatures 
of  habit?  And  now  I'm  here  I  might  as  well  get  myself  some- 
thing to  eat.  Besides,  I'm  not  going  shauchling  down  to  the 
Dean  Bridge  in  wet  shoes  either."  She  kicked  them  off  and 
moved  for  a  time  with  a  certain  conscious  pomp,  setting  out 
the  butter  and  the  milk  and  the  sugar  with  something  of  a 
sacramental  air,  and  sometimes  sobbing  at  the  thought  of  how 
far  the  journey  through  the  air  would  be  after  she  had  let  go 
the  Dean  Bridge  balustrade.  But  as  she  put  her  head  into  the 
larder  to  see  if  there  was  anything  left  in  the  pot  of  straw- 
berry jam  her  hand  happened  on  a  bowl  full  of  eggs.  There 
was  nothing,  she  had  always  thought,  nicer  to  touch  than  an 
egg.  It  was  cool  without  being  chill,  and  took  the  warmth 
of  one's  hand  flatteringly  soon,  as  if  it  liked  to  do  so,  yet  kept 
its  freshness;  it  was  smooth  without  being  glossy,  mat  as  a 
pearl,  and  as  delightful  to  roll  in  the  hand;  and  of  an  ex- 
quisite, alarming  frangibility  that  gave  it,  in  its  small  way, 
that  flavour  which  belongs  to  pleasures  that  are  dogged  by  the 
danger  of  a  violent  end.  As  elaborately  as  this  she  had  felt 
about  it;  for  she  was  silly,  as  poets  are,  and  believed  it  pos- 
sible that  things  can  be  common  and  precious  too. 

She  held  an  egg  against  the  vibrating  place  in  her  throat, 
and,  shaken  with  silent  weeping,  thought  how  full  of  delights 
for  the  sight  and  the  touch  was  this  world  she  was  going  to 
leave.  It  also  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  do  very  well  with 
it  as  an  addition  to  her  tea.  "Mother'll  not  grudge  it  me  for 
my  last  meal  on  earth,"  she  muttered  mournfully,  putting  it 
in  the  kettle  to  save  time.  "And  I  ought  to  keep  up  my 
strength,  for  I  must  write  a  good-bye  letter  that  will  show 
people  what  they've  lost.  .  .  ." 

The  egg  was  good ;  and  as  she  would  never  eat  another  she 
cut  her  buttered  bread  into  fingers  and  dipped  them  into  the 
yolk,  though  she  knew  grown-up  people  never  did  it.  The 
bread  was  good  too.  It  was  only  because  of  all  the  things 


174  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

there  are  to  eat  this  was  a  dreadful  world  to  leave.  She 
thought  reluctantly  of  food;  the  different  delicate  textures  of 
the  nuts  of  meat  that,  lying  in  such  snug  unity  within  the  crisp 
brown  skin,  make  up  a  saddle  of  mutton;  yellow  country 
cream,  whipped  no  more  than  makes  it  bland  as  forgiveness; 
little  strawberries,  red  and  moist  as  a  pretty  mouth ;  Scotch 
bun,  dark  and  rich  and  romantic  like  the  plays  of  Victor  Hugo ; 
all  sorts  of  things  nice  to  eat,  and  points  of  departure  for  the 
fancy.  Even  a  potato  roasted  in  its  skin,  if  it  was  the  right 
floury  sort,  had  an  entrancing,  ethereal  substance;  one  could 
imagine  that  thus  a  cirrus  cloud  might  taste  in  the  mouth.  If 
the  name  were  changed,  angels  might  eat  it.  Potato  plants 
were  lovely,  too. 

Very  vividly,  for  her  mind's  eye  was  staring  wildly  on  the 
past  rather  than  look  on  this  present,  which,  with  all  the  hon- 
esty of  youth,  she  meant  should  have  no  future,  there  sprung 
up  before  her  on  the  bare  plastered  wall  a  potato-field  she  and 
her  mother  had  seen  one  day  when  they  went  to  Cramond. 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  white  flowers  running  up  to  a 
skyline  in  ruler-drawn  lines.  They  had  walked  by  the  River 
Almond  afterwards,  linking  arms,  exclaiming  together  over 
the  dark  glassy  water,  which  slid  over  small  frequent  weirs, 
the  tents  of  green  fire  which  the  sun  made  of  the  overarching 
branches,  the  patches  of  moss  that  grew  so  symmetrically  be- 
tween the  tree-trunks  on  the  steep  river-banks  above  the  path 
that  they  might  have  been  the  dedicatory  tablets  of  rustic 
altars.  When  the  cool  of  the  evening  came  they  had  sat  and 
watched  a  wedding-party  dance  quadrilles  on  a  lawn  by  the 
river,  overhung  by  chestnut  trees  and  severed  by  a  clear  and 
rapid  channel,  weedless  as  the  air,  from  an  island  crowded 
by  the  weather-bleached  ruins  of  a  mill.  The  bride  and  bride- 
groom were  not  young,  and  the  stiff  movements  with  which 
they  yet  gladly  led  the  dance,  and  the  quiet,  tired  merriment 
of  their  middle-aged  friends,  gave  the  occasion  a  quality  of 
its  own;  with  which  the  faded  purples  of  the  loosestrife  and 
mallows  leaning  out  above  the  water  on  the  white  walls  on  the 
island  were  somehow  in  harmony.  That  was  a  day  most 
happily  full  of  things  to  notice.  Surely  this  was  a  world  to 
stay  in,  not  to  leave  before  one  need !  Ah,  but  it  was  now. 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  175 

If  to-morrow  they  started  on  such  a  walk  the  path  by  the 
river  would  be  impassable  by  reason  of  the  shadow  of  a  tall, 
dark  man  that  would  fall  across  it,  and  she  would  not  be  able 
to  sit  and  watch  the  dancers  because  in  any  moment  of  still- 
ness she  would  be  revisited  by  thoughts  of  the  madness  that 
had  made  her  say  those  dreadful  things,  at  the  thought  of 
which  she  laid  her  spread  hand  across  her  mouth,  that  had 
made  her  so  rude  to  the  good  old  man  who  was  their  only 
friend.  Again  she  trembled  with  hate  of  Yaverland,  a  hate 
that  seemed  to  swell  out  from  her  heart.  She  knew,  as  she 
would  have  known  if  a  flame  had  destroyed  her  sight,  that  the 
turn  life  had  taken  had  robbed  her  of  the  beauty  of  the  world 
and  was  bringing  her  existence  down  to  this  ugly  terminal 
focus,  this  moment  when  she  sat  in  this  cold  kitchen,  its  cheap 
print  and  plaster  the  colour  of  uncleaned  teeth,  and  tried  to 
pluck  up  her  energy  to  put  on  wet  shoes  and  go  through  streets 
full  of  indifferent  people  and  greased  with  foul  weather  to 
throw  herself  over  a  bridge  on  to  rocks.  She  rose  and  felt 
for  her  shoes  that  she  might  go  out  to  die.  .  .  . 

Then  at  the  door  there  came  his  knock.  There  was  no 
doubt  but  that  it  was  his  knock.  Who  else  in  all  the  time 
that  these  two  women  had  lived  there  had  knocked  so?  Two 
loud,  slow  knocks,  expectant  of  an  immediate  opening  yet 
without  fuss :  the  way  men  ask  for  things.  Peace  and  ap- 
prehension mingled  in  her.  She  crossed  her  hands  on  her 
breast,  sighed  deeply,  and  cast  down  her  head.  It  seemed 
good,  as  she  went  to  the  door  and  reluctantly  turned  the  handle, 
that  she  was  in  her  stockinged  feet;  her  noiseless  steps  gave 
her  a  feeling  of  mischief  and  confidence  as  if  there  was  to 
follow  a  game  of  pursuits  and  flights  into  a  darkness. 

His  male  breadth  blocked  the  door.  She  smiled  to  see  how 
huge  he  was,  and  stood  obediently  in  the  silence  he  evidently 
desired,  for  he  neither  greeted  her  nor  made  any  movement  to 
enter,  but  remained  looking  down  into  her  face.  His  deep 
breath  measured  some  long  space  of  time.  Her  eyes  wandered 
past  him  and  to  the  little  huddled  houses,  the  laurels  standing 
round  the  lamp,  their  leaves  bobbing  under  the  straight  silver 
rake  of  the  lamplit  rain;  and  she  marvelled  that  these  things 
looked  as  they  had  always  looked  on  any  night. 


176  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"Come  out,  I  want  to  see  you,"  he  whispered  at  last,  and 
his  hand  closing  on  her  drew  her  out  of  the  dark  hall.  She 
liked  the  wetness  of  the  flags  under  her  stockinged  feet,  the 
fall  of  the  rain  on  her  face. 

"You  little  thing!  You  little  thing!"  he  muttered:  and 
then,  "I  love  you." 

Her  head  drooped.     She  lifted  it  bravely. 

"Ellen!  Ellen!"  He  repeated  the  name  in  a  passion  of 
wonder,  till,  feeling  the  raindrops  on  her  head,  he  exclaimed 
urgently,  "But  you're  getting  wet!  Darling,  let  us  go  in." 

When  he  had  shut  the  front  door  and  they  were  left  alone 
in  the  dark,  and  she  was  free  from  the  compulsion  of  his  beauty 
and  the  intent  gaze  he  had  set  on  her  face,  she  tried  to  seize  her 
life's  last  chance  of  escape.  She  wrenched  away  her  wrist 
and  made  a  timid  hostile  noise.  But  he  linked  his  arm  in  hers 
and  whispered  reassuringly,  "I  love  you,"  and  drew  her,  since 
there  was  a  light  there,  into  the  kitchen.  He  put  his  hat  down 
on  the  table  beside  her  plate  and  cup  and  threw  his  wet  coat 
across  a  chair,  while  she  said  querulously,  sobbingly,  "Why 
do  you  call  me  little?  I  am  not  little!" 

He  took  her  hands  in  his ;  her  inky  fingers  were  intertwined 
with  his  fingers,  long  and  stained  with  strange  stains,  massive 
and  powerful  and  yet  tremulous.  The  sight  and  touch  filled 
her  with  extraordinary  joy  and  terror.  At  last  things  were 
beginning  to  happen  to  her,  and  she  did  not  know  if  she  had 
strength  enough  to  support  it.  If  she  could  have  counter- 
manded her  destiny  she  would,  although  she  knew  from  the 
rich  colour  that  tinged  this  moment,  in  spite  of  her  inade- 
quacy, it  was  going  to  be  of  some  high  kind  of  glory. 

He  took  her  in  his  arms.  His  lips,  brushing  her  ear,  asked, 
"Do  you  love  me  ?  Tell  me,  tell  me,  do  you  love  me  ?"  Dream- 
ily, incredulously,  she  listened  to  that  strong  heart-beat  which 
she  had  imagined.  But  he  pressed  her.  "Ellen,  be  kind !  Tell 
me,  do  you  love  me?"  That  was  cruel  of  him.  She  was  not 
sure  that  she  approved  of  love.  The  position  of  women  being, 
what  it  was.  Men  were  tyrants,  and  they  seemed  to  be  able 
to  make  their  wives  ignoble.  Married  women  were  often 
anti-Suffragists ;  they  were  often  fat ;  they  never  seemed  to 
go  out  long  walks  in  the  hills  or  to  write  poetry.  She  laid 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  177 

her  hands  flat  against  his  chest  and  pushed  away  from  him. 
"No!"  she  whimpered.  But  he  bent  on  her  a  face  wolfish 
with  a  hunger  that  was  nevertheless  sweet-tempered,  since  it 
was  beautifully  written  in  the  restraint  which  hung  like  a  veil 
before  his  passion  that  he  would  argue  only  gently  with  her 
denial.  And  at  the  sight  she  knew  his  whisper,  "Ellen,  be 
kind,  tell  me  that  you  love  me,"  was  such  a  call  to  her  courage 
as  the  trumpet  is  to  the  soldier.  She  held  up  her  head,  and 
cried  out,  "I  love  you!"  but  was  amazed  to  find  that  she  too 
was  whispering. 

"Oh,  you  dear  giving  thing!"  he  murmured.  "It  is  such 
charity  of  you  to  love  me !"  A  tremor  ran  through  his  body, 
his  embrace  became  a  gentle  tyranny.  He  was  going  to  kiss 
her.  But  this  she  could  not  bear.  She  loved  to  lay  her  hand 
on  the  blue  shadowed  side  of  marble,  she  loved  to  see  gleaming 
blocks  of  ice  going  through  the  streets  in  lorries,  she  loved  the 
wind  as  it  blows  in  the  face  of  the  traveller  as  he  breasts  the 
pass,  she  loved  swift  running  and  all  austerity ;  and  she  had 
confused  intimations  that  this  that  he  wanted  to  do  would  in 
some  deep  way  make  war  on  these  preferences.  "Ah,  no!" 
she  whimpered.  "I  have  told  you  that  I  love  you.  Why  need 
you  touch  me?  I  can  love  you  without  touching  you.  Please 
.  .  .  please.  .  .  ." 

Oh,  if  he  wanted  it  he  must  have  it.  As  she  let  her  head 
fall  back  on  her  throat  it  came  to  her  that  though  she  had  not 
known  that  she  had  ever  thought  of  love,  although  she  would 
have  sworn  that  she  had  never  thought  of  anything  but  getting 
on,  there  had  been  many  nights  when,  between  sleeping  and 
waking,  she  had  dreamed  of  this  moment.  It  was  going  to  be 
(his  deep  slow  breath,  gentle  with  amorousness,  assured  her) 
as  she  had  then  prefigured  it;  romantic  as  music  heard  across 
moonlit  water,  as  a  deep  voice  speaking  Shakespeare,  as  rich 
colours  spilt  on  marble  when  the  sun  sets  behind  cathedral 
windows;  but  warm  as  summer,  soft  as  the  south  wind.  .  .  . 

But  this  was  pain.  How  could  he  call  by  the  name  of  de- 
light this  hard,  interminable,  sucking  pressure  when  it  sent 
agony  downwards  from  her  mouth  to  the  furthest  cell  of  her 
body,  changing  her  bones  so  that  ever  after  they  would  be 
more  brittle,  her  flesh  so  that  it  would  be  more  subject  to 


178  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

bruises!  She  did  not  suspect  him  of  cruelty,  for  his  arms 
still  held  her  kindly,  but  her  eyes  filled  with  tears  at  the  strange- 
ness, which  she  felt  would  somehow  work  out  to  her  disad- 
vantage, of  the  world  where  people  held  wine  and  kisses  to  be 
pleasant  things.  Yet  when  the  long  kiss  came  to  an  end  she 
was  glad  that  he  set  another  on  her  lips,  for  she  had  heard 
his  deep  sigh  of  delight.  She  would  always  let  him  kiss  her 
as  much  as  he  liked,  although  she  could  not  quite  see  what 
pleasure  he  found  in  it.  Yet,  could  she  not  ?  Of  course  it  was 
beautiful  to  be  held  close  by  Richard  Yaverland!  His  sub- 
stance was  so  dear,  that  his  very  warmth  excited  her  tender- 
ness and  the  rhythm  of  his  breathing  made  wetness  dwell 
about  her  lashes;  it  was  most  foolish  that  she  should  feel 
about  this  great  oak-strong  man  as  if  he  were  a  little  helpless 
thing  that  could  lie  in  the  crook  of  her  arm,  like  an  ailing 
PuPPy»'  or  perhaps  a  baby. 

A  pervading  weakness  fell  on  her;  her  arms,  which  had 
somehow  become  linked  round  his  neck,  were  now  as  soft  as 
garlands,  her  knees  failed  under  her  shivering  body;  but 
through  her  mind  thundered  grandiose  convictions  of  new 
power.  There  was  no  sea,  however  black  with  chill  and 
depth,  in  which  she  would  not  dive  to  save  him,  no  desert 
whose  un watered  sands  she  would  not  travel  if  so  she  served 
his  need.  It  was  as  if  already  some  brown  arm  had  thrown  a 
spear  and  she  had  flung  herself  before  him  and  blissfully  re- 
ceived the  flying  steel  into  her  happy  flesh.  Love  began  to 
travel  over  her  body,  lighting  here  and  there  little  fires  of 
ecstasy,  making  her  adore  him  with  her  skin  as  she  had  always 
adored  him  with  her  heart.  And  as  the  life  of  her  nerves  be- 
came more  and  more  intense,  her  sensations  more  and  more 
luminous,  she  became  less  conscious  of  her  materiality.  At 
the  end  she  felt  like  a  flash  of  lightning.  From  that  moment 
she  sank  confused  into  the  warm  darkness  of  his  embrace, 
while  above  her  his  voice  muttered  hesitant  with  solemnity: 
"Ellen  .  .  .  you  are  the  answer  ...  to  everything.  .  .  ." 

They  drew  apart  and  stood  far  off,  looking  into  each  other's 
eyes.  The  clock,  ticking  away  time,  seemed  a  curious  toy. 
"You.  In  this  little  room.  Oh,  Ellen,  it  is  a  miracle,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  179 

Pressing  her  hands  together  beneath  her  chin,  she  smiled. 

"Ah,  you  are  so  beautiful!  Your  hair.  Your  eyes.  The 
little  white  ball  of  your  chin.  As  a  matter  of  hard  fact,  you 
are  more  beautiful  than  I've  ever  imagined  anybody  else  to  be. 
The  wildest  lies  I've  ever  told  myself  about  the  women  I've 
wanted  to  love  are  true  of  you."  For  a  moment  he  was  still, 
thinking  of  Mariquita  de  Rojas  as  a  swimmer  might  look 
down  through  fathoms  of  clear  water  on  the  face  of  a  drowned 
woman.  "But  you  .  .  .  you  are  beautiful  as  ...  as  an  im- 
personal thing.  .  .  ."  He  clenched  his  fists  in  exasperation. 
All  his  life  the  one  gift  he  had  exercised  easily  and  indubi- 
tably, not  losing  it  even  when  his  besetting  despair  stood  be- 
tween him  and  the  sun,  was  the  power  to  talk.  While  he  was 
speaking  the  dominoes  lay  untouched  on  the  greasy  cafe  table ; 
men  bent  forward  on  their  elbows  that  with  his  tongue  he 
might  make  them  companions  of  men  who  were  half  the  world 
distant,  maybe  the  whole  world  distant  in  their  graves,  that 
he  might  warm  them  with  the  beams  of  a  sun  long  set  on  a 
horizon  they  would  never  see.  That  was  vanity ;  or,  more 
justly,  the  filling  in  of  dangerously  empty  hours,  holes  in  ex- 
istence through  which  it  seemed  likely  the  soul  might  run 
out.  But  now,  when  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  he  should 
tell  her  what  she  was  to  him,  he  could  not  talk  at  all.  He  stut- 
tered on  to  try  to  win  in  the  way  he  knew  her  generous  heart 
could  be  won  by  a  statement  of  her  new  joy. 

"Ellen — you  know  what  I  mean?  There's  a  particular  kind 
of  rapture  that  comes  when  you're  looking  at  an  impersonal 
thing.  I  mean  a  thing  that  doesn't  amuse  you,  doesn't  tickle 
up  your  greed  or  vanity,  doesn't  feed  you.  Like  looking  at 
the  dawn.  I  feel  like  that  when  I  look  at  you.  And  yet  you 
are  so  sweet  too.  Oh,  you  dear  Puritan,  you  will  not  like  me 
to  say  you  are  like  scent.  But  you  are.  Even  at  the  feminine 
game  you  could  beat  all  other  women.  You  see,  it  is  the 
loveliest  thing  in  the  world  to  watch  women  dancing ;  but  with 
other  women,  when  their  bodies  stop  it's  all  over.  They  stand 
beside  you  showing  minds  that  have  never  moved,  that  have 
been  paralysed  since  they  were  babies.  But  when  you  stopped 
dancing  you-r  soul  would  go  on  dancing.  Your  mind  has  as 


180  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

neat  ankles  as  your  body.  You  are  the  treasure  of  this  earth ! 
Ellen,  do  you  know  that  I  am  a  little  frightened  ?  I  do  believe 
that  love  is  a  real  magic." 

He  had  fallen  into  that  lecturer's  manner  she  had  noticed 
on  the  first  night  at  the  office,  when  he  had  told  them  about 
bullfights.  Her  heart  pricked  with  pride  because  she  perceived 
that  now  she  was  his  subject. 

"I  have  been  up  and  down  the  world  and  I  have  seen  no 
other  real  magic.  I  do  not  believe  that  in  this  age  God  has 
altered  anyone.  People  love  God  nowadays  as  much  as  the 
temperaments  they  were  born  with  tell  them  to.  He  has  grown 
too  old  for  miracles.  After  two  thousand  years  he  has  no 
longer  the  force  to  turn  water  into  wine.  Ellen,  I  love  your 
dear  prim  smile.  But  always,  everywhere,  I  have  found  the 
love  of  men  and  women  doing  that.  Sometimes  the  love  of 
places  does  something  very  like  it.  A  man  may  land  on  a 
strange  island,  and  abandon  the  journey  on  which  he  set  out, 
and  the  home  he  set  out  from,  to  live  there  for  ever.  But 
there  his  soul  has  just  sunk  tc  sleep.  It  hasn't  been  changed. 
But  love  changes  people.  I've  seen  the  dirtiest  little  greasers 
clean  themselves  up  and  become  capable  of  decency  and  cour- 
age, because  there  was  some  woman  about.  And  oh,  my  darl- 
ing !  that  happened  with  quite  ordinary  women.  V'm  Ordinaire. 
Pieces  cut  from  the  roll  of  ordinary  female  stuff.  But  how 
will  the  magic  word  act  when  you  are  part  of  the  spell — you 
who  are  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  whole  world,  who 
are  the  flower  of  the  earth's  crop  of  beauty,  who  have  such 
a  genius  for  just  being!  Oh,  it  will  be  a  tremendous  thing." 

He  paused,  marvelling  at  his  own  exultation,  which  marked, 
he  knew,  so  great  a  change  in  him.  For  always  before  it  had 
been  his  chief  care  that  nothing  at  all  should  happen  to  him 
emotionally,  and  especially  had  he  feared  this  alchemy  of  pas- 
sion. He  had  been  unable  to  pray  for  purity,  since  he  felt  it 
an  ideal  ridiculously  not  indigenous  to  this  richly-coloured 
three-dimensional  universe,  and  he  had  observed  that  it  made 
men  liable  to  infatuations  in  later  life;  but  he  had  prayed  for 
lust,  which  he  knew  to  be  the  most  drastic  preventive  of  love. 
But  it  had  evaded  him  as  virtue  evades  other  men.  Never  had 
he  been  able  to  look  on  women  with  the  single  eye  of  desire; 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  181 

always  in  the  middle  of  his  lust,  like  the  dark  stamen  in  a 
bright  flower,  there  appeared  his  inveterate  concern  for  peo- 
ple's souls.  Every  woman  to  whom  he  wanted  to  make  love 
was  certain  to  be  engaged  in  some  defensive  struggle  against 
fate,  for  that  is  the  condition  of  strong  personality,  and  his 
quick  sense  would  soon  detect  its  nature;  and  since  there  is 
nothing  more  lovable  than  the  sight  of  a  soul  standing  up 
against  fate,  looking  so  little  under  the  dome  of  the  indifferent 
sky,  he  would  find  himself  nearly  in  love.  And  because  that 
meant,  as  he  had  observed,  this  magic  change  of  the  self,  he 
would  turn  his  back  on  the  adventure,  for  all  his  life  he  had 
disliked  profound  emotional  processes  with  exactly  the  same 
revulsion  that  a  decent  man  feels  for  some  operation  which, 
though  within  the  law,  is  outside  the  dictates  of  honesty.  He 
knew  there  was  no  reason  that  could  be  formulated  why  he 
should  not  become  a  real  lover;  but  nevertheless  he  had  al- 
ways felt  as  if  for  him  it  would  be  an  act  of  disloyalty  to 
some  fair  standard. 

He  quaked  at  his  own  oddness,  until  there  struck  home  to  his 
heart,  as  an  immense  reassurance,  the  expression  on  Ellen's 
face.  It  had  been  blank  with  the  joy  of  being  loved,  a  ro- 
mantic mask,  lit  steadily  with  a  severe  receptive  passion;  but 
the  abstraction  in  his  voice  and  an  accompanying  failure  of  in- 
vention in  his  compliments  had  not  escaped  unnoticed  by  her, 
and  there  was  playing  about  her  dear  obstinate  mouth  and 
fierce-coloured  eyebrows  the  most  delicious  look  of  shrewdness, 
as  if  she  had  his  secret  by  the  coat-tail  and  would  deliver  it 
up  to  justice;  and  over  all  there  was  the  sweetest,  most  playful 
smile,  which  showed  that  she  would  make  a  jest  of  his  negli- 
gence, that  she  was  one  of  those  who  exclude  ugliness  from 
their  lives  by  imposing  beautiful  interpretations  on  all  that 
happened  to  her ;  and  behind  these  lovely  things  she  did  shone 
the  still  lovelier  thing  she  was.  It  struck  home  to  him  the 
immense  degree  to  which  brooding  on  so  perfect  and  adven- 
turous a  thing  would  change  him,  and  once  more  he  was  not 
afraid.  Taking  her  again  in  his  arms,  he  cried  out:  "Ellen! 
Ellen !  You  mean  so  much  to  me !  I  love  you  as  a  child  loves 
its  mother,  partly  for  real,  disinterested  love  and  partly  for 
the  thing  you  give  me!  You  are  going  to  do  such  a  lot  for 


182  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

me!  You  will  put  an  end  to  this  damned  misery!  And  just 
the  sight  of  you  about  my  home,  you  slip  of  light,  you  dear 
miracle !" 

She  put  her  hand  across  his  mouth,  blushing  at  the  familiar- 
ity of  her  gesture  yet  urgently  impelled  to  it.  "That'll  do," 
she  said.  "I  know  you  think  I'm  nice.  But  what  were  you 
saying  about  being  miserable?  You're  not  miserable,  are 
you?" 

"Sometimes.     I  have  been  lately." 

"You  miserable!"  she  softly  exclaimed.  "You  so  big  and 
strong — and  victorious!  But  why?" 

"Oh,  no  reason.     It's  a  mood  that  comes  on  me." 

"I  have  them  myself.  It's  proof  of  our  superior  delicacy 
of  organisation,"  she  gravely  told  him. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  The  feeling  that  comes  on  you  when 
you've  taken  particular  care  to  turn  up  for  an  important  ap- 
pointment, and  you  get  to  the  place  ten  minutes  before  the  time, 
and  find  there's  nobody  there,  and  wait  about,  and  suddenly 
find  you've  come  a  day  late.  And  still  you  go  on  hanging 
round,  feeling  there  must  be  something  you  can  do,  although 
you  know  you  can't.  It  stays  months  sometimes.  A  sense  of 
having  missed  some  opportunity  that  won't  come  again.  I 
don't  know  what  it  means.  But  it  turns  life  sour.  It  seems  to 
take  the  power  out  of  one's  fingers,  to  make  one's  brainstuff 
hot  and  thick  and  dark.  It  makes  one's  work  seem  not  worth 
doing.  But  that's  all  over.  It  won't  come  again  now  I  have 
you !"  He  sat  down  on  the  basket  chair  and  drew  her  on  to 
his  knee,  giving  her  light  caresses  to  correct  the  heavy  things 
he  had  just  been  saying.  She  received  them  abstractedly,  as  if 
she  were  thinking  silent  vows.  "Ellen,  I  don't  know  what 
your  eyes  are  like.  The  sea  never  looks  kind  like  that,  and  they 
are  wittier  than  flowers.  You're  not  really  like  a  flower  at  all, 
you  know,  though  I  believe  that  in  our  circumstances  it's  con- 
sidered the  proper  thing  for  me  to  tell  you  that  you  are. 
You're  too  important,  and  you  wouldn't  like  growing  in  a 
garden,  which  even  wild  flowers  seem  to  want  to  do.  I'll  tell 
you  what  you're  like.  You're  like  an  olive  tree.  They're  slim 
like  you,  and  their  branches  go  up  like  arms,  as  if  they  were 
asking  for  a  vote,  and  they  grow  dangerously  (just  as  you 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  183 

would  if  you  were  a  tree)  on  the  very  edge  of  cliffs ;  and  one 
looks  past  them  at  the  blue  sea,  just  as  I  look  past  you  at  the 
glorious  life  I'm  going  to  have  now  I've  got  you.  Dearest, 
when  can  we  get  married?" 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Ellen,  greatly  pleased.  "Are  you  in  a 
position  to  keep  a  wife?" 

He  burst  out  laughing.  "You  darling!  Do  you  know,  I 
believe  I  could  keep  two." 

She  did  not  laugh.  "It's  wicked  to  think  that  if  you  did 
I  couldn't  divorce  you.  You'd  have  to  be  cruel  as  well.  I 
heard  Brynhild  Ormiston  say  so." 

He  went  on  laughing.  "Well,  don't  let  that  hold  you  back. 
I  dare  say  I  could  rise  to  being  cruel  as  well.  Let's  look  on 
the  bright  side  of  things.  Tell  me,  darling,  when  will  you 
marry  me?" 

"Those  iniquitous  marriage-laws,"  she  murmured.  "It 
makes  one  think.  .  .  "  She  looked  down,  weighing  grave 
things. 

"My  dearest,  you  can  forget  the  marriage-laws.  I  will 
adore  you  so,  I  will  be  so  faithful,  I  will  work  my  fingers  to 
the  bone  so  gladly  to  make  you  kind  to  me,  that  there  is  no 
divorce  law  in  the  world  will  let  you  get  rid  of  me."  Shy  at 
his  own  sincerity,  he  kissed  her  hair,  and  whispered  in  her 
ear,  "I  mean  it,  Ellen." 

She  raised  her  head  with  that  bravery  he  loved  so  much, 
and  gave  him  her  lips  to  kiss,  but  her  eyes  were  still  wide  and 
set  with  reluctance. 

"What  can  be  worrying  her?"  he  wondered.  "Can  it  be 
that  she  isn't  sure  about  my  money?  Of  course  she  hasn't 
the  least  idea  how  much  I've  got.  Wise  little  thing,  if  she 
dreads  transplantation  to  some  little  hole  worse  than  this." 
He  looked  distastefully  at  the  age-cracked  walls,  stained  with 
patches  of  damp  that  seemed  like  a  material  form  of  disgrace. 
That  she  should  have  grown  to  beauty  in  these  infect  sur- 
roundings made  him  feel,  as  he  had  often  done  before,  that 
she  was  not  all  human  and  corruptible,  but  that  her  flesh  was 
mixed  with  precious  substance  not  subject  to  decay,  her  blood 
interpenetrated  with  the  material  of  jewels.  Perhaps  some 
sorcerer  had  conf  usioned  it  of  organic  and  inorganic  beauty  and 


184  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

chosen  some  ancestress  of  Ellen  for  his  human  ingredient;  he 
remembered  an  African  story  of  a  woman  fertilised  by  a 
sacred  horn  of  ivory;  an  Indian  story  of  a  princess  who  had 
lain  with  her  narrow  brown  body  straight  and  still  all  night 
before  the  altar  of  a  quiet  temple,  that  the  rays  of  a  holy  ruby 
might  make  her  quick ;  surely  their  children  had  met  and  bred 
the  stock  that  had  at  last,  in  the  wise  age  of  the  world,  made 
this  thing  of  rubies  and  ivory  that  lay  in  his  arms.  He  liked 
making  fantasie:  about  her  that  were  stiff  as  brocade  with 
fantastic  imagery,  that  were  more  worshipful  of  her  loveliness 
than  anything  he  yet  dared  say  to  her.  Absent-mindedly  he 
went  on  reassuring  her.  "You  know,  I've  got  quite  enough 
money.  Fortunately  the  branch  of  chemistry  I'm  interested 
in  is  of  great  commercial  use,  so  I  get  well  paid.  Iniquitously 
well  paid,  when  one  considers  how  badly  pure  scientific  work 
is  paid;  and  of  course  pure  science  ought  to  be  rewarded  a 
hundred  times  better  than  applied  science.  We  ought  to  be 
able  to  manage  quite  decently.  My  mother's  got  her  own 
money,  so  my  income  will  be  all  ours.  There's  no  reason  of 
that  sort  why  we  shouldn't  get  married  at  once.  We'll  have 
to  live  in  Essex  at  first.  I've  got  to  go  and  work  on  Kerith 
Island." 

She  wriggled  on  his  lap.  "What's  that  you  were  saying 
about  science?"  she  asked,  her  voice  dipping  and  soaring  with 
affected  interest.  "Why  isn't  pure  science  to  be  rewarded 
better  than  applied  science?" 

"Why  is  she  trying  to  put  me  off?"  he  speculated.  "It  isn't 
a  matter  of  being  sure  of  a  decent  home.  In  fact,  she  hated 
my  talking  about  money.  I  wonder  what  it  is."  To  let  her 
do  what  she  wanted  with  the  conversation  he  said  aloud,  "Oh, 
because  applied  science  is  a  mug's  game.  Pure  science  is  a 
kind  of  marriage  with  knowledge — the  same  kind  of  marriage 
that  ours  is  going  to  be,  when  you  find  out  all  about  a  person 
by  being  with  them  all  the  time  and  loving  them  very  much. 
Applied  science  is  the  other  sort  of  marriage.  In  it  you  go 
through  the  pockets  of  knowledge  when  he's  asleep  and  take 
out  what  you  want.  But,  dear,  I  don't  want  to  talk  of  that. 
I  want  to  know  when  you're  going  to  marry  me." 

"I  hope,"  she  said  quaveringly,  "that  all  your  people  won't 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  185 

think  I  am  marrying  you  for  your  money.  But  then  .  .  .if 
they  know  you  .  .  .  they  will  know  that  you  are  so  glorious 
.  .  .  that  any  woman  would  marry  you  ...  if  you  were  a 
beggar,  or  the  ideal  equivalent  of  that." 

"Oh,  you  dear  absurd  thing!"  he  cried,  feeling  intensely 
moved.  "Haven't  you  the  least  idea  how  far  beyond  price 
you  are,  how  worthless  I  am !  Anyway  .  .  .  I've  no  people, 
except  my  mother."  He  paused  and  wondered  if  he  would  tell 
her  about  his  mother  now ;  but  seeing  that  her  brows  were  still 
knitted  by  her  private  trouble  about  their  marriage,  the  nature 
of  which  he  could  not  guess,  he  thought  he  would  not  do  it 
just  now.  In  any  case,  he  did  not  want  to.  "And  she  will 
know  how  lucky  I  am  to  get  you,  how  little  I  deserve  you." 

"I'd  have  married  you,"  said  Ellen,  not  without  bitterness, 
"if  you'd  been  an  anti-Suffragist."  The  situation  was  so 
plainly  presenting  itself  to  her  as  being  in  some  way  dreadful 
that  he  anxiously  held  her  with  his  eyes.  She  stammered, 
folding  and  refolding  her  hands.  "It'll  be  queer,  living  in  a 
house  with  you,  won't  it?" 

He  had  held  her  eyes,  and  thus  forced  her  to  tell  him  what 
was  troubling  her,  on  the  assumption  that  he  could  deal  with 
her  answer.  But  this  was  outside  his  experience.  He  did  not 
know  anything  about  girls ;  he  had  hardly  believed  in  the  posi- 
tive reality  of  girlhood ;  it  had  seemed  to  him  rather  a  negative 
thing,  the  state  of  not  being  a  woman.  But  in  the  light  of  her 
gentle,  palpitant  distress,  he  saw  that  it  was  indeed  so  real 
a  state  that  passing  from  it  to  the  state  of  womanhood  would 
be  as  terrible  as  if  she  had  to  give  birth  to  herself.  ...  It  was 
such  a  helpless  state,  too.  She  was,  he  said  to  himself  again — 
for  he  knew  she  did  not  like  him  to  say  it ! — such  a  little  thing. 
He  remembered,  with  a  sudden  sweat  of  horror,  the  conversa- 
tion in  the  lawyer's  office  that  had  sent  him  sweating  up  here, 
keeping  himself  so  hot  with  curses  at  the  human  world  that 
he  had  not  felt  the  coldness  of  the  weather.  God,  how  he  had 
hated  that  office  from  the  moment  he  set  foot  in  it !  He  had 
hated  Mr.  Mactavish  James  at  sight  as  much  as  he  had  hated 
his  young  son;  for  the  solicitor  had  surveyed  him  with  that 
lewd  look  that  old  men  sometimes  give  to  strong  young  men. 
He  had  perceived  at  once,  from  the  way  Mr.  James  was  suck- 


186  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

ing  the  occasion,  that  he  had  been  sent  for  some  special  pur- 
pose, and  he  did  not  believe,  from  the  repetition  of  that  lewd 
look,  that  it  related  to  his  property  in  Rio  or  that  it  was  clean. 
He  was  prepared  for  the  drawled  comment,  "I  hear  ye're  mak- 
ing fren's  wi'  our  wee  Nelly,"  and  he  was  ready  with  a  hard 
stare.  It  was  enraging  to  see  that  the  old  man  had  expected 
his  haughtiness  and  that  it  was  evidently  fuel  for  his  lewd 
jest.  "I  am  fond  of  wee  Nelly.  She's  just  a  world's  wonder. 
You  sit  there  saying  nothing,  maybe  it  doesn't  interest  you, 
but  you  would  feel  as  I  do  if  you  had  seen  her  the  way  I  did 
thon  day  a  year  ago  in  June.  Ay!"  He  threw  his  eyes  up 
and  exclaimed  succulently,  "The  wee  bairn!"  with  an  air  of 
giving  a  handsome  present. 

Yaverland,  who  had  not  come  much  in  contact  with  Scotch 
sentimentality,  felt  very  sick,  and  increasingly  so  as  the  old 
man  told  how  he  had  met  her  up  at  the  Sheriff's  Court.  "Six- 
teen, and  making  her  appearance  in  the  Sheriff's  Court!" 
Yaverland  had  a  vision  of  a  court  of  obscure  old  men  all 
gloating  impotently  and  imaginatively  on  Ellen's  red  and 
white.  "What  was  she  doing  there?"  he  asked  in  exaspera- 
tion, forgetting  his  vow  to  appear  indifferent  about  Ellen,  and 
was  enraged  to  see  Mr.  Mactavish  James  chuckle  at  the  per- 
ceived implications  of  his  interested  enquiry.  "Well,  it  was 
this  way.  Her  mither,  who  was  Ellen  Forbes,  whom  I  knew 
well  when  I  was  young,  had  the  wee  house  in  Hume  Park 
Square.  You'll  have  been  there?  Hev'  ye  not?  Imphm.  I 
thought  so.  Well,  they'd  had  thought  difficulty  in  paying  the 
rent.  .  .  ."  The  story  droned  on  perpetually,  breaking  off 
into  croonings  of  sensual  pity;  and  Yaverland  sat  listening  to 
it  with  such  rage,  that,  as  he  soon  knew  from  the  narrator's 
waggish  look,  the  vein  in  his  forehead  began  to  swell. 

It  appeared  that  the  poor  little  draggled  bird  had  in  the 
summer  of  its  days  been  known  as  Ellen  Forbes  had  got  into 
arrears  with  the  rent;  as  some  cheque  had  been  greatly  de- 
layed, and  that  when  the  cheque  had  arrived  she  had  been 
taken  away  to  the  fever  hospital  with  typhoid  fever,  and  that, 
since  she  had  to  lie  on  her  back  for  three  weeks,  Ellen,  who 
was  left  alone  in  that  wee  house — he  rolled  his  tongue  round 
the  loneliness  repellently — had  neither  sent  the  cheque  on  to 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  187 

her  nor  asked  her  to  write  a  cheque  for  the  rent.  The  land- 
lord, "a  man  called  Inglis,  wi'  offices  up  in  Clark  Street,  who 
does  a  deal  of  that  class  of  property" — it  was  evident  that  he 
admired  such — saw  a  prospect  of  getting  tenants  to  take  on 
the  house  at  a  higher  rental.  So,  "knowing  well  that  Ellen  was 
a  wean  and  no'  kenning  what  manner  of  wean  she  was,"  and 
hearing  from  some  source  that  they  were  exceptionally  friend- 
less and  alone,  served  her  with  a  notice  that  he  was  about  to 
apply  for  an  eviction  order.  But  Ellen  had  attended  the  court 
and  told  her  story. 

"By  the  greatest  luck  in  the  world  I  happened  to  be  in 
court  that  day,  looking  after  the  interests  of  a  client  of  mine, 
a  most  respectable  unmarried  lady,  a  pillar  of  St.  Giles,  who 
had  been  horrified  to  find  out  that  her  property  was  being  used 
as  a  bad  house.  Hee  hee."  He  was  abashed  to  perceive  that 
this  young  man  was  not  overcome  with  mirth  and  geniality  at 
the  mention  of  a  brothel.  "The  minute  I  saw  the  wee  thing 
standing  there  in  the  well  of  the  court,  saying  what  was  what — 
she  called  him  'the  man  Inglis/  she  did ! — I  kenned  there  was 
not  her  like  under  the  sun."  She  had  won  her  case;  but  Mr. 
James  had  intercepted  her  on  the  way  out,  and  had  stopped  her 
to  congratulate  her,  and  had  been  amazed  to  find  the  tears 
running  down  her  cheeks.  "I  took  the  wee  thing  aside."  It 
turned  out  that  to  defend  her  home,  and  keep  it  ready  for  her 
mother  coming  out  from  the  hospital,  she  had  to  come  down 
to  the  court  on  the  very  day  that  she  should  have  sat  for  the 
examination  by  which  she  had  hoped  to  win  a  University 
scholarship.  "The  wee  thing  was  that  keen  on  her  buiks !" 
he  said,  with  caressing  contempt,  "and  she  was  like  to  cry  her 
heart  out.  So  I  put  it  all  right."  "What  did  you  do?"  Yaver- 
land  had  asked,  expecting  to  hear  of  some  generous  offer  to 
pay  her  fees,  and  remembering  that  he  had  heard  that  the 
Scotch  were  passionate  about  affairs  of  education.  "I  offered 
her  a  situation  as  typist  here,  as  my  typist  had  just  left,"  said 
Mr.  Mactavish  James,  with  an  ineffable  air  of  self-satisfaction. 
Yaverland  had  been  about  to  burst  into  angry  laughter,  when 
the  old  man  had  gone  on,  "Ay,  and  I  thought  I  had  found  a 
nest  for  the  wee  lassie.  But  a  face  as  bonnie  as  hers  brings 
its  troubles  with  it !  Ay,  ay !  I'm  sorry  to  have  to  say  it." 


188  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


Oh !  it  went  slower  and  smoother  like  a  dragged-out  song  at 
a  ballad  concert.  "There's  one  in  the  office  will  not  leave  the 
puir  lassie  alone.  .  .  ."  Yaverland  had  fumed  with  rage  at  the 
idea;  and  then  had  been  overcome  with  a  greater  loathing  of 
this  false  and  theatrical  old  man.  Inglis  and  the  man  who 
wanted  her  were  at  least  slaves  of  some  passion  that  was  the 
fruit  of  their  affairs.  But  this  man  was  both  of  them.  He 
had  not  wished  this  girl  well.  He  had  rejoiced  in  her  poverty 
because  it  stimulated  the  flow  of  the  juices  of  pity;  he  had 
rejoiced  in  her  disappointment;  he  had  rejoiced  in  Inglis's 
villainy  because  he  could  pity  her;  he  had  rejoiced  in  the  un- 
known man's  lust  because  he  could  step  protectively  in  front 
of  Ellen ;  and,  worse  than  this,  hadn't  he  savoured  in  the  story 
vices  that  he  himself  had  had  to  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of 
standing  well  with  the  world?  Had  he  not  felt  how  lovely  it 
must  be  to  be  Inglis  and  hunt  little  weak  slips  of  girls  and 
make  more  money?  Had  he  not  felt  himself  revisited  by  the 
warm  fires  of  lust  in  thinking  of  this  unknown  man's  pursuit 
of  Ellen  and  wallowed  in  it?  Yaverland  had  risen  quickly, 
and  said  haltingly,  trying  to  speak  and  not  to  strike  because 
the  man  was  old  and  his  offence  indefinite.  "No  doubt  you've 
been  very  good  to  Miss  Melville."  Mr.  Mactavish  James 
had  been  amazed  by  the  grim  construction  of  the  speech,  the 
lack  of  any  response  matching  his  "crack"  in  floridity.  He  had 
expected  comment  on  his  generosity.  Positive  resentment  had 
stolen  into  his  face  as  Yaverland  had  turned  his  back  on  him 
and  rushed  up  the  wet  streets  to  rescue  Ellen  from  the  world. 

Alas,  that  it  should  turn  out  that  he  too  was  something  from 
which  her  delicate  little  soul  asked  to  be  rescued!  He  could 
not  bear  the  thought  of  altering  her.  The  prospect  of  taking 
her  as  his  wife,  of  making  her  live  in  close  contact  with  his 
masculinity,  dangerous  both  in  its  primitive  sense  of  some- 
thing vast  and  rough,  and  also  as  something  more  experienced 
than  her,  seemed  as  iniquitous  as  the  trampling  of  some  fine 
white  wild  flower.  But  then,  she  was  beautiful,  not  only 
lovely :  destiny  had  marked  her  for  a  high  career ;  to  leave  her 
as  she  was  would  be  to  miscast  one  who  deserved  to  play  the 
great  tragic  part,  which  cannot  be  played  without  the  actress's 
heart  beating  at  the  prospect  of  so  great  a  role.  Oh,  there  was 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  189 

no  going  back !  But  he  perceived  he  must  be  very  clever  about 
it.  He  must  make  it  all  as  easy  as  possible  for  her.  His 
heart  contracted  with  tenderness  as  he  took  vows  that  could 
not  have  been  more  religious  if  they  had  been  made  concern- 
ing celibacy  instead  of  concerning  marriage.  He  regretted  he 
was  an  Atheist.  He  had  felt  this  before  in  moments  of  urg- 
ency, for  blasphemy  abhors  a  vacuum,  but  now  he  wanted 
some  white  high  thing  to  swear  by;  something  armed  with 
powers  of  eternal  punishment  to  chastise  him  if  he  broke  his 
oath.  He  found  that  his  eyes  were  swimming  with  tears. 
Yes,  tears !  Oh,  she  had  extended  life  to  limits  he  had  not 
dreamed  of !  He  had  never  thought  he  would  laugh  out  loud 
as  he  had  done  to-night.  He  had  never  thought  his  eyes  would 
grow  wet  as  they  were  doing  now.  And  it  was  good.  He 
looked  at  her  in  gratitude,  and  found  her  looking  at  him. 

"Fancy  you  being  miserable!  And  me,"  she  reproached 
herself,  "thinking  that  everybody  was  happy  but  myself ! 
Dear  .  .  ."  She  rose  to  it,  walking  down  to  the  cold  water. 
"Let's  marry  soon." 

The  sequence  of  thought  was  to  be  followed  easily.  She 
was  willing  to  take  this  step,  which  for  reasons  she  did  not 
understand  made  her  flesh  goose-grained  with  horror,  because 
she  thought  she  could  prevent  him  from  being  unhappy.  "Oh, 
Ellen!"  he  cried  out,  and  buried  his  head  on  her  bosom.  "I 
want — I  want  to  deserve  you.  I  will  work  all  my  life  to  be 
good  enough  for  you."  He  felt  the  happiness  of  a  man  who 
has  found  a  religion. 

They  heard  a  key  turning  in  the  front  door.  Ellen  slipped 
off  his  knee  and  stood,  first  one  foot  behind  the  other,  balanced 
on  the  ball  of  one  foot,  a  finger  to  her  lips,  in  the  attitude  of  a 
frightened  nymph.  Then  she  recovered  herself,  and  stood 
sturdily  on  both  feet  with  her  hands  behind  her.  How  he 
adored  her,  this  nymph  who  wanted  to  look  like  Mr.  Glad- 
stone ! 

Mrs.  Melville,  pitifully  blown  about,  a  most  ruffled  little 
bird,  appeared  at  the  door.  She  was  amazed.  "Mr.  Yaver- 
land!  In  the  kitchen!  And,  Ellen,  what  are  you  doing  in 
your  stocking  feet?  Away  and  take  Mr.  Yaverland  into  the 
parlour !" 


190  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    ONE 


"He  came  in  here  himself,"  said  Ellen.  She  had  become 
a  little  girl,  a  guilty  little  girl. 

Yaverland  caught  Mrs.  Melville's  eye  and  held  it  for  a  frac- 
tion of  an  instant.  She  mustn't  know  they  had  talked  of  it  be- 
fore. That  would  never  do,  for  a  modern  woman.  "Mrs. 
Melville,"  he  said,  "I've  asked  Ellen  to  marry  me." 

Her  eyes  twinkled.  "You  never  say  so!"  she  said,  with 
exquisite  malice  at  the  expense  of  her  clever  daughter.  "I 
am  surprised !"  She  sat  down  at  the  head  of  the  kitchen  table, 
setting  a  string  bag  full  of  parcels  on  the  table  in  front  of  her. 
She  was  breathing  heavily,  and  her  voice,  he  noticed,  was  very 
hoarse.  Poor  little  thing!  Yet  she  was  glad.  Wonderful  to 
see  her  so  glad  about  anything;  pathetic  to  see  how,  though 
all  her  life  had  gone  shipwrecked,  she  cheered  her  daughter  to 
voyage.  "She  must  live  near  us  in  Essex,"  he  thought  rapidly. 
"I  must  give  her  a  decent  allowance."  "Well,  well !"  she  said 
happily. 

Ellen,  feeling  that  things  were  being  taken  too  much  for 
granted,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  remarked  suddenly,  "And 
I  think  I'll  take  him." 

Her  eyes  twinkled  again  at  Yaverland.  Wasn't  there  some- 
thing very  sweet  about  her?  She  was,  in  effect,  glad  that  he 
loved  her  daughter,  because  now  she  had  somebody  who  could 
laugh  at  this  wonderful  daughter! 

"Let  me  marry  her  soon,"  he  said. 

She  became  doubtful.  Her  face  contracted,  as  it  had  done 
when  she  had  said,  "Let  her  bide ;  she's  only  a  bairn." 

"We  must  live  in  Essex,"  he  said,  to  get  her  past  the  mo- 
ment. 

She  became  tragic. 

"You'd  like,  I  think,  to  come  and  live  near  us?  If  there 
isn't  a  house  at  Roothing,  there  are  plenty  at  Prittlebay.  It 
would  be  good  for  you.  Obviously  you  can't  stand  this  cli- 
mate." 

She  looked  up  at  him  and  said,  the  thought  of  them  living 
together  having  obviously  presented  itself  to  her  for  the  first 
time,  "Ah,  well.  I  hope  you'll  both  be  happy.  Happier  than 
I  was."  She  receded  back  into  memory,  and  found  first  of  all 
that  ancient  loyalty  that  she  had  always  practised  in  his  life. 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  191 

"Not  but  what  John  Melville  was  a  better  man  than  anyone 
has  allowed." 

They  didn't  say  anything,  but  stood  silent,  giving  the  moment 
its  honour.  Then  Ellen  stepped  to  her  mother's  side  and  said 
chidingly,  "Mother,  what's  wrong  with  your  throat?  You 
had  a  cold  when  you  went  out,  but  nothing  like  this.  It's 
terrible." 

"It's  nothing,  dear.  Take  Mr.  Yaverland — maircy  me,  what 
shall  I  call  you  now?" 

"Richard.    That's  what  my  mother  calls  me." 

"Oh,"  she  cried  flutteringly,  "it's  like  having  a  son  again. 
No  one  would  think  I  was  your  mother,  though,  and  you  such 
a  great  thing!  Though  Ronnie  if  he  had  lived  would  have 
been  tall.  As  tall  as  you,  I  wouldn't  wonder,"  she  said,  with 
a  tinge  of  jealousy.  "Well,  Ellen,  take  Richard  into  the  parlour 
and  light  the  fire.  I'll  see  to  the  supper." 

"You  will  not,"  said  Ellen,  whom  shyness  was  making 
deliciously  surly.  It  was  like  seeing  her  in  a  false  beard. 
"R — Richard,  will  you  take  her  into  the  parlour  yourself? 
She's  got  a  terrible  throat.  Can  you  not  hear?" 

"Ellen  dear!" 

"Away  now!" 

"I  will  not  away.  Ellen,  don't  worry.  You  don't  know 
where  I  put  the  best  tablecloth  after  the  mending — and  there's 
nothing  but  cod-roes,  and  you  know  well  that  in  cooking  your 
mother  beats  you.  Run  away,  dear — you'll  make  Richard  feel 
awkward " 

Ellen  shrugged  her  shoulders.  She  knew  that  she  ought 
to  insist,  but  she  knew  too  that  it  would  be  lovely  lighting  the 
fire  for  Richard. 

IV 

He  had  not  been  able  to  see  Ellen  for  three  days.  But  he 
had  written  to  her  three  times. 

"I'm  missing  another  day  of  you,  Ellen.  'And  I'm  greedy  for 
every  minute  of  you.  There  you  are,  away  from  me,  and  mov- 
ing about  and  doing  all  the  sweet  things  you  do,  and  saying  all 


192  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

the  things  you  do  say,  and  your  red  hair  catching  the  light  and 
your  voice  full  of  exquisite  sweet  sounds,  and  I  just  have  to 
get  along  seeing  and  hearing  nothing  of  it.  I  am  the  most  in- 
satiable of  lovers.  Life  is  thirst  without  you.  I  grudge  every 
moment  we  have  been  alive  on  the  same  ivorld  and  not  to- 
gether. What  a  waste!  What  a  waste!  I've  never  wanted  \ 
an  immortal  soul  before,  but  now  I  do — that  I  may  go  on  with 
you  and  go  on  with  you,  you  darlingissima,  you  endlessly  lovely 
human  thing.  I'd  go  through  all  the  ages  with  you;  we'd  be 
like  two  children  reading  a  wonderful  book  together,  and  you'd 
light  even  the  darkest  passage  of  time  for  me  with  your  wit 
and  your  beauty.  Tell  me  everything  you  are  doing,  tell  me 
every  little  thing,  my  lovely  red-haired  Ellen.  .  .  ." 

And  she  had  written  to  him  twice.  .  .  . 

"And  in  the  evening  I  went  out  shopping.  I  wish  you  would 
tell  me  what  you  like  to  eat.  It  would  give  shopping  an  interest. 
Then  I  went  to  the  library  and  got  a  trashy  novel  for  mother 
to  read,  as  I  am  still  keeping  her  in  bed.  For  myself,  I  wanted 
to  read  something  about  love,  as  hitherto  I  have  not  taken  much 
interest  in  it  and  have  read  practically  nothing  on  the  subject, 
so  I  got  out  the  works  of  Shelley  and  Byron.  But  their  love 
poems  are  very  superficial.  I  do  wish  you  were  here.  Please 
come  soon.  When  mother  is  well  I  will  be  able  to  make  cakes 
for  you.  Did  you  see  the  sunset  yesterday?  I  am  surprised 
to  find  how  much  feeling  there  is  arising  out  of  what  is,  after 
all,  quite  an  ordinary  event  of  life.  For  after  all,  this  happens 
to  nearly  everybody.  But  I  do  not  believe  it  can  happen  quite 
like  this  to  other  people.  I  am  sure  there  must  be  something 
quite  out  of  the  ordinary  about  our  feelings  for  one  another. 
Do  please  come  soon.  .  .  ." 

Well,  he  had  come,  his  arms  full  of  flowers  and  illustrated 
papers  for  the  invalid,  and  neither  his  soft  first  knock,  designed 
to  spare  Mrs.  Melville's  susceptibilities,  nor  his  more  vigorous 
second,  had  brought  Ellen  to  the  door.  He  stepped  back  some 
paces  and  looked  up  at  the  three  dwarfish  storeys  of  the  silent 
little  house,  and  alarm  fell  on  him  as  he  saw  that  all  the  win- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  193 

dows  were  dark.  The  reasoning  portion  of  his  mind  delib- 
erated whether  there  could  conceivably  be  any  bedrooms  look- 
ing out  to  the  back,  but  with  the  crazed  imagination  of  a  lover 
he  saw  extravagant  visions  of  the  evils  that  might  befall  two 
fragile  women  living  alone.  He  pictured  Ellen  sitting  up  in 
bed,  blinking  at  the  lanterns  of  masked  men.  Then  it  struck 
him  as  probable  that  Mrs.  Melville's  sore  throat  might  have 
developed  into  diphtheria,  and  that  Ellen  had  caught  it,  and  the 
two  women  were  even  now  lying  helpless  and  unattended  in  the 
dark  house,  and  he  brought  down  the  knocker  on  the  door  like 
a  hammer.  The  little  square,  which  a  moment  ago  had  seemed 
an  amusing  setting  for  Ellen's  quaintness,  now  seemed  like 
a  malignant  hunchback  in  its  darkness  and  its  leaning  angles, 
and  the  branches  of  the  trees  in  the  park  beyond  the  railings 
swayed  in  the  easy  wind  of  a  fine  night  with  that  ironical  air 
nature  always  assumes  to  persons  convulsed  by  human  passion. 
But  presently  he  heard  the  crazy  staircase  creak  under  some- 
body's feet,  and  the  next  moment  Ellen's  face  looked  out  at 
him.  She  held  a  candle  in  her  hand,  and  in  its  light  he  saw 
that  her  face  was  marked  with  fatigue  as  by  a  blow  and  that 
her  hair  fell  in  lank,  curved  strands  about  her  shoulders. 

She  nearly  sobbed  when  she  saw  him,  but  opened  the  door 
no  wider  than  a  crack.  "Oh,  Richard !  It's  lovely  to  see  you, 
but  you  mustn't  come  in.  They've  taken  poor  mother  away  to 
the  fever  hospital  with  diphtheria." 

"Diphtheria!"  he  exclaimed.  "That's  rum!  It  flashed 
through  my  mind  as  I  knocked  that  it  was  diphtheria  she  had." 

"Isn't  that  curious !"  she  murmured,  her  eyes  growing  large 
and  soft  with  wonder.  But  her  rationalism  asserted  itself  and 
her  glance  grew  shrewd  again.  "Of  course  that's  all  nonsense. 
What  more  likely  for  you  to  think,  when  you  knew  it  was  her 
throat  that  ailed  her?"  Seeing  that  in  her  enthusiasm  for  a 
materialist  conception  of  the  universe  she  loosed  her  grip  of 
the  doorhandle,  he  pushed  past  her,  and  took  her  candlestick 
away  from  her  and  set  it  down  with  his  flowers  and  papers  on 
the  staircase.  "Oh,  you  mustn't,  you  mustn't !"  she  cried  under 
his  kisses.  "Do  you  not  know  it's  catching?  I  may  have  it 
on  me  now." 

"Oh,  God,  I  hope  you  haven't,  you  precious  thing.  .  .  ." 


194  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"I  don't  expect  so.  I've  had  an  anti-diphtheritic  serum  in- 
jected. Science  is  a  wonderful  thing.  But  you  might  get  it." 

"That  be  damned." 

"Och,  you  great  swearing  thing!"  she  crooned  delightedly, 
and  nuzzled  into  his  chest.  "Ah,  how  I  like  you  to  like  kissing 
me!"  she  whispered  in  a  woman's  voice.  "More  than  I  like 
it  myself.  Is  that  not  strange?"  Then  her  face  puckered 
and  she  was  young  again,  hardly  less  young  than  any  new-born 
thing  "It's  a  mild  case,  the  doctor  said,  but  it  hurt  her  so! 
And  oh,  Richard,  when  the  ambulance  man  carried  her  away 
she  looked  so  wee !" 

"Why  did  you  let  her  go?"  he  asked  with  sudden  impa- 
tience. He  loved  her  so  much  that  her  swimming  eyes  turned 
a  knife  in  his  heart,  and  his  maleness  resented  the  pain  her 
female  sensitiveness  was  bringing  on  him,  and  wanted  to  prove 
that  all  this  could  have  been  avoided  by  the  use  of  the  male 
attribute  of  common  sense,  and  therefore  she  deserved  no 
sympathy  at  all.  "I  would  have  stood  you  nurses.  I'm  one 
of  the  family  now.  You  might  have  let  me  do  that !" 

"Dear,  I  thought  of  asking  you  for  that,"  she  said  timidly, 
"but,  you  see,  nurses  are  ill  to  deal  with  in  a  wee  house  like 
this  where  there's  no  servant.  If  I  had  sickened  for  it  myself 
where  would  we  all  have  been?  Worse  than  in  the  hospital." 
Of  course  she  had  been  wise ;  it  was  her  constant  quality.  He 
shook  with  rage  at  the  thought  of  the  extreme  poverty  of  the 
poor,  whom  the  world  pretends  are  robbed  only  of  luxury  but 
who  are  denied  such  necessities  as  the  right  to  watch  beside  the 
beloved  sick.  "But  I've  been  reckless !"  she  boasted  with  a 
smile.  "I've  told  them  to  put  her  in  a  private  ward.  She  was 
so  pleased !  She  was  six  weeks  in  the  general  ward  when  she 
had  typhoid,  and  it  was  dreadful,  all  the  women  from  the 
Canongate  and  the  Pleasance.  .  .  ."  It  brought  painful  tears 
to  his  eyes  to  hear  this  queen,  who  ought  to  have  had  first  call 
on  the  world's  riches,  rejoicing  because  by  a  stroke  of  good 
fortune  her  mother  need  not  lie  in  her  sickness  side  by  side 
with  women  of  the  slums.  "Oh,  my  dear,  I'm  so  glad  I  can 
look  after  you !"  he  muttered,  and  gathered  her  closely  to  him. 

"Oh  dear,  and  me  in  my  dressing-gown !"  she  breathed. 

"You  look  very  beautiful." 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  195 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  beauty ;  I  was  thinking  of  decency." 

"Nobody  would  call  a  dressing-gown  of  grey  flannel  fastened 
at  the  neck  with  a  large  horn  button  anything  but  decent." 

"Yes,  it's  cairtainly  sober,"  said  Ellen  placidly.  "Beauty, 
indeed !  I'm  past  thinking  of  beauty,  after  having  been  up  all 
night  giving  mother  her  medicine  and  encouraging  her,  and 
getting  her  ready  in  the  morning  for  the  ambulance,  and  going 
away  over  to  the  doctor  at  Church  Hill  for  my  injection  this 
afternoon.  I  fear  to  think  what  I'm  looking  like,  though  doubt- 
less it  would  do  me  good  to  know." 

"You  must  be  tired  out.  Run  along  to  bed.  I'll  go  away 
now  and  come  back  the  first  thing  in  the  morning." 

"Who's  talking  of  bed?"  she  complained  with  a  smiling 
peevishness.  ("Ye've  got — ye've  got  remarkable  eyebrows. 
The  way  they  grow  makes  me  feel  all — all  desperate.")  "I've 
had  a  lie-down  since  four.  You  woke  me  up  with  your  knock- 
ing. Dear,  I've  never  been  woken  up  so  beautifully  before. 
Now  I  want  my  supper.  I  never  lose  my  appetite  even  when 
the  Liberals  win  a  by-election,  which  considering  the  way  our 
women  work  against  them  is  one  of  those  things  that  disprove 
all  idea  of  a  just  Providence.  Dear,  but  it'll  be  such  a  poor 
supper  to  set  before  you!  There's  not  a  thing  in  the  house 
but  a  tin  of  salmon.  It  is  a  mercy  that  mother  isn't  here, 
for  this  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  upsets  her  terribly.  She 
wakes  me  up  sometimes  dreaming  of  the  time  the  milk  was 
sour  when  Mr.  Kelman  came  on  his  parish  visit,  though  that's 
five  years  ago  now.  Oh,  Richard,  mother  is  such  a  wee  sensi- 
tive thing,  you  cannot  think!  I  cannot  bear  her  to  be  ill! 
But  indeed  she  is  not  very  ill.  The  doctor  said  she  was  not 
very  ill.  He  said  I  would  be  a  fule  to  worry.  She  would  be 
at  me  for  letting  you  stand  out  in  the  hall  like  this.  You  go 
into  the  parlour.  I'll  light  the  fire,  and  then  I'll  away  to  the 
kitchen  and  get  the  supper.  We  must  just  make  the  best  of 
it,  and  I  have  heard  that  some  people  prefer  tinned  salmon  to 
fresh." 

"It's  the  distinguishing  mark  of  connoisseurs  in  all  the 
capitals  of  Europe,"  said  Richard.  "But  darling,  don't  light 
a  fire  for  me.  I'll  go  off  as  soon  as  you've  had  supper,  so  that 
you  can  turn  in." 


196  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"But  as  soon  as  supper's  eaten  I  have  to  away  out.  Ah, 
will  you  come  with  me?  I  like  walking  through  the  streets 
with  you.  It's  somehow  like  a  procession.  You're  awful  like 
a  king,  Richard.  Not  the  present  Royal  Family." 

"But  why  must  you  go  out?" 

"To  see  how  mother  is.  Do  you  not  know?  When  the 
ambulance  men  come  they  give  you  a  number.  Mother's  is 
ninety-three.  Then  every  morning  and  every  evening  they  put 
a  board  in  the  window  up  at  the  Public  Health  Office  in  the 
High  Street,  with  headings  on  it :  'Very  dangerously  ill,  friends 
requested  to  come  at  once.'  'Very  ill,  but  no  immediate  dan- 
ger,' 'Getting  on  well,'  and  the  numbers  grouped  against  them. 
She'll  be  amongst  the  'Getting  on  wells.'  The  doctor  said  there 
was  no  cause  for  worry  at  all.  He  is  a  splendid  doctor." 

"But,  my  God,  can't  you  telephone?" 

"No,  of  course  not.  They  can't  do  that  in  these  institutions. 
They'd  have  to  keep  someone  to  do  nothing  but  answer  the 
telephone  all  day.  But  it  doesn't  really  matter.  Hardly  any- 
body dies  of  fevers,  do  they  ?  I  never  heard  of  anybody  dying 
of  diphtheria,  did  you  ?  They  used  to  in  the  old  days,  but  it's 
all  different  now.  This  serum's  such  a  wonderful  thing.  But 
they  did  hurt  so  when  they  injected  it.  She  cried,  although 
she  is  awful  brave  as  a  usual  thing.  Oh,  let's  get  on  with  this 
supper !"  She  passed  into  the  kitchen  and  began  preparations 
for  a  meal,  banging  down  the  saucepans,  while  he  brought  in 
his  gifts  and  laid  them  on  the  table.  "I'm  taking  it  for  granted 
that  you  like  your  cocoa  done  with  milk.  What's  all  this? 
Oh,  did  you  bring  those  flowers  for  her?  Oh,  that  was  kind 
of  you !  Pink  flowers,  too,  and  she  loves  pink.  It's  her  great 
grief  that  all  her  life  she  wanted  a  pink  dress,  and  what  with 
one  thing  and  another,  first  having  a  younger  sister  so  sallow 
that  a  pink  dress  in  the  neighbourhood  spoilt  all  her  chances, 
and  afterwards  father  just  wincing  if  there  seemed  any  chance 
of  her  having  anything  she  liked,  she  never  got  one.  Illustrated 
papers,  too!  She  likes  a  read,  though  nothing  intellectual. 
Richard,  I  do  believe  you're  thoughtful.  That'll  be  a  great 
help  in  our  married  life."  She  turned  over  the  glossy  pages, 
clicking  her  tongue  with  disapproval.  "Anti-Suffragists  to  a 
woman,  I  expect,"  adding  honestly,  "but  pairfect  teeth." 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  197 

Her  little  face,  seen  now  in  repose,  unlit  by  the  light  that 
glowed  in  her  eyes  when  she  looked  at  him,  was  piteous  with 
fatigue.  "Ellen,  can't  I  go  and  look  at  this  board?" 

"No.     I  want  to  go  myself." 

"Then  come  and  do  it  now,  and  then  we'll  go  on  and  have 
supper  at  some  place  in  Princes  Street." 

"No.  I  want  to  leave  it  as  late  as  possible.  Then  it'll  seem 
like  saying  good-night  to  Mother." 

They  ate  but  little.  She  tasted  a  few  mouthfuls,  and  then 
clambered  on  to  his  knee  and  lay  in  his  arms,  burying  her  face 
against  his  shoulder.  She  might  have  been  asleep  but  that 
she  sometimes  put  up  her  hand  and  stroked  his  hair  and  traced 
his  eyebrows  and  made  a  little  purring  noise;  and  once  she 
cried  a  little  and  exclaimed  pettishly,  "It's  just  lack  of  sleep. 
I'm  not  anxious.  I'm  not  a  bit  anxious."  And  presently  she 
looked  up  at  the  alarum  clock  and  said,  "That's  never  nine? 
We  must  go.  Richard,  you  are  great  company!"  She  ran 
upstairs  to  dress,  singing  in  the  sweetest  little  voice,  wild  yet 
low  and  docile,  such  as  a  bird  might  have  if  it  were  christened. 
When  she  came  down  she  faced  him  with  gentle  defiance  and 
said,  "I  know  I'm  awful  plain  to-night.  I  suppose  you'll  not 
love  me  any  more?"  He  answered,  "Be  downright  ugly  if 
you  can.  It  won't  matter  to  me.  I  love  you  anyhow."  She 
lifted  her  hand  to  turn  out  the  gas  and  smiled  at  him  over  her 
shoulder.  "If  that's  not  handsome!"  she  drawled  mockingly, 
but  in  her  glance,  though  she  dropped  her  lids,  there  burned  a 
flame  of  earnestness,  and  just  as  he  was  going  to  open  the 
front  door  she  slipped  into  his  arms  and  rested  there,  shaken 
with  some  deep  emotion,  with  words  she  felt  too  young  to  say. 

"What  is  it?    What  is  it  you  want  to  say?    Tell  me." 

"Do  you  think  we  can  do  it,  Richard?  Love  each  other 
always.  Now,  it's  easy.  We're  young.  It's  easier  to  be  nice 
when  you're  young.  .  .  .  But  mother  and  father  must  have 
cared  for  each  other  once.  She  kept  his  letters.  After  every- 
thing she  kept  his  letters.  .  .  .  It's  when  one  gets  old  .  .  .  old 
people  quarrel  and  are  mean.  Ah,  do  you  think  we  will  be 
able  to  keep  it  up?" 

She  was  remembering,  he  could  see,  the  later  married  life 
of  her  parents,  and  conceiving  it  for  the  first  time  not  with  the 


198  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

harsh  Puritan  moral  vision  of  the  young,  as  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  deliberate  ill-conduct,  but  as  the  decay  of  an  intention 
for  which  the  persons  involved  were  hardly  more  to  blame  than 
is  an  industrious  gardener  for  the  death  of  a  plant  whose 
habit  he  has  not  understood.  It  was,  to  one  newly  possessed  of 
happiness,  a  terrifying  conception. 

He  muttered,  low-voiced  and  ashamed  as  those  are  who 
speak  of  things  much  more  sacred  than  the  common  tenor  of 
their  lives :  "Of  course  it'll  be  difficult  after  the  first  few  years. 
But  it's  hard  to  be  a  saint.  Yet  there  have  been  saints.  All 
that  they  do  for  their  religion  I'll  do  for  vou.  I  will  keep 
clear  of  evil  things  lest  they  spoil  the  feelings  I  have  for  you. 
I.  ...  There  are  thoughts  like  prayers.  .  .  .  And,  darling 
,  .  .  I  do  not  believe  in  God  .  .  .  yet  I  know  that  through  you 
I  shall  find  .  .  .  something  the  same  as  God.  .  .  ."  He  could 
not  say  it  all.  But  it  communicated  itself  in  their  long  un- 
passionate  kiss. 

They  crept  out  of  the  dark  house  that  had  heard  them  as 
out  of  a  church.  He  was  very  happy  as  they  went  through 
the  high,  wide  streets  that  to-night  were  broad  rivers  of  slow 
wind.  He  was  being  of  use  to  her;  she  was  leaning  on  his 
arm  and  sometimes  shutting  her  tired  eyes  and  trusting  to 
his  guidance.  The  very  coldness  of  the  air  he  found  pleas- 
ing, because  it  told  him  that  he  was  in  the  North,  the  cruel- 
kind  region  of  the  world  which  sows  seeds  from  the  South 
in  ice-bound  earth  in  which  it  would  seem  that  they  must 
perish,  yet  rears  them  to  such  fruit  and  flower  as  in  their  own 
rich  soil  they  never  knew. 

At  the  first,  he  reflected,  it  must  have  appeared  that  the  faith 
they  made  in  Rome  would  lose  all  its  justifications  of  beauty 
when  it  travelled  to  those  barren  lands  where  the  Holy  Wafer 
and  the  images  of  Our  Lord  and  Our  Lady  must  be  content 
with  a  lodging  built  not  of  coloured  marble  but  of  grey  stone. 
Yet  here  the  Northmen  won.  Since  there  were  no  quarries 
of  coloured  marble  they  had  to  quarry  in  their  minds,  and 
there  they  found  the  Gothic  style,  which  made  every  church 
like  the  holiest  moment  of  a  holy  soul's  aspiration  to  God, 
and  which  is  doubtless  more  pleasing  to  Him,  if  He  exists  to 
be  pleased,  than  precious  stones. 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  199 

So  was  it  with  love.  A  man  returning  from  the  South, 
where  all  women  are  full  of  physical  wisdom,  might  think  as 
he  looked  on  these  Northern  women,  with  their  straight  sex- 
less eyes  and  their  long  limbs  innocent  of  languor,  that  he 
had  turned  his  back  on  love.  But  here  again  the  North  was 
victor.  Since  these  women  could  not  be  wise  about  life  with 
their  bodies,  they  were  wise  about  love  with  their  souls.  They 
can  give  such  sacramental  kisses  as  the  one  that  still  lay 
on  his  lips,  committing  him  for  ever  to  nobility.  Ah,  how  much 
she  had  done  for  him  by  being  so  sweetly  militarist!  For  it 
had  always  been  his  fear  that  the  supreme  passion  of  his  life 
would  be  for  some  woman  who,  by  her  passivity,  would  pro- 
voke him  to  develop  those  tyrannous  and  brutish  qualities 
which  he  had  inherited  from  his  father.  He  had  seen  that 
that  might  easily  happen  during  his  affair  with  Mariquita  de 
Rojas ;  in  those  years  he  had  been,  he  knew,  more  quarrelsome 
and  less  friendly  to  mild  and  civilising  things  than  he  was  or- 
dinarily. But  henceforward  he  was  safe,  for  Ellen  would 
fiercely  forbid  him  to  be  anything  but  gentle.  Now  that  he 
realised  how  good  their  relationship  was  he  wanted  it  to  be 
perfect,  and  therefore  he  felt  vexed  that  he  had  not  yet  made  it 
perfectly  honest  by  telling  her  about  his  mother.  He  resolved 
to  do  so  there  and  then,  for  he  felt  that  that  kiss  had  sealed 
the  evening  to  a  serenity  in  which  pain  surely  could  not  live. 

"You're  walking  slower  than  you  were,"  said  Ellen  sharply. 
"What  was  it  you  were  thinking  of  saying?" 

He  answered  slowly,  "I  was  thinking  of  something  that  I 
ought  to  tell  you  about  myself." 

She  looked  sideways  at  him  as  they  passed  under  a  lamp, 
and  wrote  in  her  heart,  "When  the  vein  stands  out  in  the  mid- 
dle of  his  forehead  I  will  know  that  he  is  worried,"  then  said 
aloud,  "Och,  if  it's  anything  disagreeable,  don't  bother  to  tell 
me.  I'll  just  take  it  for  granted  that  till  you  met  me  you  were 
a  bad  character." 

"It's  nothing  that  I've  done.  It's  something  that  was  done 
to  my  mother  and  myself."  He  found  that  after  all  he  could 
not  bear  to  speak  of  it,  and  began  to  hurry  on,  saying  loudly, 
"Oh,  it  doesn't  matter!  You  poor  little  thing,  why  should 
I  bother  you  when  you're  dog-tired  with  an  old  story  that  can't 


200  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

affect  us  in  the  least!  It's  all  over;  it's  done  with.  We've 
got  our  own  lives  to  lead,  thank  God!" 

She  would  not  let  him  hurry  on.  "What  was  it,  Richard?" 
she  insisted,  and  added  timidly,  "I  see  I'm  vexing  you,  but  I 
know  well  it's  something  that  you  ought  to  tell  me !" 

He  walked  on  a  pace  or  two,  staring  at  the  pavement.  "Ellen, 
I'm  illegitimate."  She  said  nothing,  and  he  exclaimed  to  him- 
self, "Oh,  God,  it's  ten  to  one  that  the  poor  child  can't  make 
head  or  tail  of  it!  She  probably  knows  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing  about  these  things !"  Into  his  deep  concern  lest  he 
had  troubled  the  clear  waters  of  her  innocence  there  was  creep- 
ing unaccountably  a  feeling  of  irritation,  which  made  him 
want  to  shout  at  her.  But  he  mumbled,  "My  father  and  mother 
weren't  married  to  each  other.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  I  understand,"  she  said  rather  indignantly ;  and  after 
a  moment's  silence  remarked  conversationally,  "So  that's  all, 
is  it?"  Then  her  hand  gripped  his  and  she  cried,  "Oh,  Rich- 
ard, when  you  were  wee,  did  the  others  twit  you  with  it?" 

Oh,  God,  was  she  going  to  take  it  sentimentally?  "No.  At 
least,  when  they  did  I  hammered  them.  But  it  was  awful  for 
my  mother." 

"Ah,  poor  thing,"  she  murmured,  "isn't  it  a  shame!  Mrs. 
Ormiston  is  always  very  strong  on  the  unmarried  mother  in 
her  speeches." 

He  had  a  sudden  furious  vision  of  how  glibly  these  women 
at  the  Suffrage  meeting  would  have  talked  of  Marion's  case 
and  how  utterly  incapable  they  would  have  been  to  conceive 
its  tragedy ;  how  that  abominable  woman  in  sky-blue  would 
have  spoken  gloatingly  of  man's  sensuality  while  she  herself 
was  bloomed  over  with  the  sensual  passivity  that  provokes 
men  to  cruel  and  extravagant  demands.  That  nobody  but 
himself  ever  seemed  to  have  one  inkling  of  the  cruelty  of  her 
fate  he  took  as  evidence  that  everybody  was  tacitly  in  league 
with  the  forces  that  had  worked  towards  it,  and  he  found  him- 
self unable  to  exempt  Ellen  from  this  suspicion.  If  she  began 
to  chatter  about  Marion,  if  she  talked  about  her  without  that 
solemnity  which  should  visit  the  lips  of  those  who  talk  of 
martyred  saints,  there  would  begin  a  battle  between  his  loves, 
the  issue  of  which  was  not  known  to  him.  He  said  with  some 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  201 

exasperation :  "I'm  not  talking  of  the  unmarried  mother ;  I  am 
talking  of  my  mother,  who  was  not  married  to  my  father.  .  .  ." 

But  she  did  not  hear  him.  The  news,  though  it  had  roused 
that  high  pitch  of  trembling  apprehension  which  it  now  knew 
at  any  mention  of  the  sequel  of  love,  had  not  shocked  her.  In 
order  to  feel  that  quick  reaction  of  physical  loathing  to  the 
story  of  an  irregular  relationship  before  hearing  its  details, 
which  is  known  as  being  shocked,  one  must  be  either  not  quite 
innocent  and  have  ugly  associations  with  sex,  or  have  had 
reason  to  conceive  woman's  life  as  a  market  where  there  are 
few  buyers,  and  a  woman  who  is  willing  to  live  with  a  lover 
outside  marriage  as  a  merchant  who  undersells  her  competi- 
tors ;  and  Ellen  was  innocent  and  undefeated.  It  seemed  to 
her,  indeed,  just  such  a  story  as  she  might  have  expected  to 
hear  about  his  birth.  It  was  natural  that  to  find  so  wonderful 
a  child  one  would  have  to  go  to  the  end  of  the  earth.  There 
appeared  before  her  mind's  eye  a  very  bright  and  clean  picture, 
perhaps  the  frontispiece  of  some  forgotten  book  read  in  her 
childhood,  which  represented  a  peasant  girl  clambering  on  to 
a  ledge  half-way  up  a  cliff  and  holding  back  a  thorny  branch 
to  look  down  on  a  baby  that,  clad  in  a  little  shirt,  lay  crowing 
and  kicking  in  a  huge  bird's  nest.  She  wondered  what  man- 
ner of  woman  it  was  that  had  so  recklessly  gone  forth  and 
found  this  world's  wonder.  "What  is  your  mother  like?  Tell 
me,  what  is  she  like?" 

"What  is  she  like?"  he  repeated  stiffly.  He  was  not  quite 
sure  that  she  was  asking  in  the  right  spirit,  that  she  was  not 
moved  by  such  curiosity  as  makes  people  study  the  photo- 
graphs of  murdered  people  in  the  Sunday  papers.  "She  is 
very  beautiful.  .  .  ."  But  he  should  not  have  said  that.  Now 
when  he  brought  Ellen  to  Marion  he  would  hear  her  say  to  her- 
self, as  tourists  do  when  they  see  a  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  "Well, 
that's  not  my  idea  of  beauty,  I  must  say !"  and  he  would  stop 
loving  her.  But  Ellen  was  saying,  "I  thought  she  would  be. 
You  know,  Richard,  you  are  quite  uncommon-looking.  But 
tell  me,  what  is  she  like?"  Of  course  he  might  have  known  she 
was  trying  to  get  at  the  story.  He  had  better  tell  her  at  once, 
so  that  he  was  not  vexed  by  these  anglings.  He  dragged  it 
out  of  himself.  "She  was  young,  very  young.  My  father 


202  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

was  the  squire  of  the  Essex  village  that  is  our  home.  .  .  ." 
It  was  useless.  He  could  not  tell  her  of  that  tragedy.  How 
black  a  tragedy  it  was !  How,  it  existing,  he  could  be  so  crass 
as  to  eat  and  drink  and  be  merry  with  love?  He  turned  his 
face  away  from  Ellen  and  wished  her  arm  was  not  in  his, 
yet  felt  himself  bound  to  go  on  with  his  story  lest  she  might 
make  a  vulgar  reading  of  the  facts  and  imagine  that  his  mother 
had  given  herself  to  his  father  without  being  married  for  sheer 
easiness.  "They  could  not  marry  because  he  had  a  wife. 
They  loved  each  other  very  much.  At  least,  on  her  side  it  was 
love !  On  his  ...  on  his  .  .  ." 

"Ah,  hush!"  she  said.  She  gripped  his  arm  and  he  felt 
that  she  was  trembling  violently.  "Dear,  the  way  you're 
speaking  of  it  ...  somehow  it's  making  it  happen  all  over 
again.  .  .  ." 

This  was  strange.  He  looked  down  on  her  with  sudden 
respect.  For  she  was  using  almost  the  same  words  that  his 
mother  had  spoken  often  enough  when  he  had  sat  beside  her 
bed  on  those  nights  when  she  could  not  sleep  for  the  argument 
of  phantom  passions  in  her  room,  and  she  opened  her  eyes 
suddenly  after  having  lain  with  them  closed  for  a  time,  and 
found  him  grieving  for  her.  "Dear,  you  must  not  be  so  sorry 
for  me.  Hold  my  hand,  but  do  not  feel  too  sorry  for  me.  It 
only  makes  it  worse  for  me.  Truly,  I  ask  for  my  own  sake, 
not  for  yours.  Do  you  not  see?  When  all  the  ripples  have 
gone  from  the  pond  I  shall  forget  I  ever  threw  that  stone.  .  .  ." 
Was  it  not  strange  that  this  girl,  on  whose  mind  the  dew  was 
not  yet  dry,  should  speak  the  same  wise  words  that  had  been 
found  fittest  by  a  woman  who  had  been  educated  by  a  tragic 
destiny?  But  of  course  she  was  as  wise  as  she  was  beautiful. 
His  thought  of  Marion  became  fatigued  and  resentful  because 
it  had  made  him  forget  the  marvel  of  his  Ellen. 

"Forgive  me."  he  murmured. 

"Of  course  I  forgive  you." 

"What,  before  I  have  told  you  what  it  is  I  want  forgiveness 
for?" 

"I  have  it  in  my  mind  I  will  always  forgive  you  for  any- 
thing you  do." 

"That's  a  brave  undertaking!" 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  203 

They  laughed  into  each  other's  faces  through  the  dusk. 
"Well,  I've  always  hankered  after  a  chance  to  show  I'm  brave. 
When  I  was  a  wee  thing  I  used  to  cry  because  I  couldn't  be 
a  soldier.  I  had  the  finest  collection  of  tin  soldiers  you  can 
imagine.  A  pairfect  army.  Mother  used  to  stint  herself  to 
buy  them  for  me.  ...  Oh,  dear!  Oh,  dear!"  He  felt  her 
tremble  again.  "Well,  we've  come  to  the  end  of  George  the 
Fourth  Bridge.  Is  it  not  awful  inappropriate  to  call  a  street 
after  George  the  Fourth  when  it  is  nearly  all  bookshops?" 

She  did  not  name  the  street  which  they  were  entering. 
Indeed,  though  her  breathing  was  tense,  lethargy  seemed  to 
have  fallen  on  her,  and  she  slackened  her  pace  and  made  him 
halt  with  her  at  the  kerb,  where  they  were  necessarily  jostled 
by  the  press  of  squalid  people,  lurching  with  drink  or  merely 
with  rough  manners,  that  streamed  up  and  down  this  street  of 
topless  houses  whose  visible  lower  storeys  were  blear-eyed  with 
windows  broken  or  hung  with  rags. 

"Isn't  this  the  High  Street?" 

"Yes.  And  I  wish  we  were  here  any  time  but  this.  Think 
if  this  was  a  fine  Saturday  morning  now,  and  we  were  going  up 
to  the  Castle  to  see  the  Highlanders  drilling." 

"Didn't  you  say  the  Public  Health  Office  was  opposite  the 
Cathedral?" 

"I  did  so.  But  dear  knows  it  was  ridiculous  of  me  to  drag 
you  here.  Most  likely  her  number  will  not  be  there  at  all. 
After  all,  she  was  only  taken  away  this  morning,  and  the  doctor 
said  there'd  be  no  change.  He  said  I  would  be  just  a  fule  to 
worry." 

He  guided  her  across  the  road  and  looked  for  the  office 
among  the  shops  that  faced  the  dark  shape  of  the  Cathedral, 
while  she  hung  on  his  arm.  "You  will  be  angry  with  me  for 
dragging  you  for  nothing  out  into  this  awful  part." 

"Is  this  it?" 

"Yes,  you  must  look,  my  eyes  ache,"  she  said  peevishly. 
"Besides,  her  number  will  not  be  there.  Richard,  did  ever  you 
see  a  white  dog  like  yon  in  the  guttter?  Is  it  not  a  most  pe- 
culiar-looking animal  ?" 

After  a  moment's  silence  he  said  steadily,  "What  did  you 
say  your  mother's  number  was?" 


204  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

"Ninety-three.  I  told  you  it  would  not  be  there.  Richard, 
look  at  that  white  dog!" 

His  arm  slipped  round  her.  "My  little  Ellen,"  he  whispered, 
"Ellen !" 


A  turn  of  the  long  dark  avenue  brought  them  alongside  the 
city  of  the  sick,  which  till  then  had  been  only  a  stain  of  light 
on  the  sky,  and  they  looked  through  the  railings  at  the  hos- 
pital blocks  which  lay  spaced  over  the  level  ground  like  battle- 
ships in  a  harbour.  She  reproached  her  being  as  inadequate 
because  no  intuition  told  her  in  which  block  her  mother  was. 
After  a  further  stretch  of  avenue  they  came  to  a  sandstone 
arch  with  lit  rooms  on  either  side,  which  diffused  a  grudging 
brightness  through  half-frosted  windows  on  some  beds  of 
laurel  bushes  and  a  gravel  drive.  These  things  were  so  ugly 
in  such  a  familiar  way,  so  much  of  a  piece  with  the  red  sub- 
urban streets  which  she  knew  stretched  from  the  gates  of  this 
place  through  Morningside  past  Blackford  Hill  to  Newington, 
and  which  had  always  seemed  to  her  to  shelter  only  the  residue 
of  life,  strained  of  all  events,  that  she  took  them  as  good 
omens. 

When  they  went  into  the  room  on  the  left,  and  found  a  little 
office  with  ink-spattered  walls  and  a  clerk  sitting  on  a  high 
stool,  she  told  herself,  while  a  quarter  of  her  mind  listened 
to  Richard  explaining  their  errand  and  thought  how  nice  it 
was  to  have  a  man  to  speak  for  one,  that  it  was  impossible  for 
such  an  ordinary  place  to  be  the  setting  of  an  event  so  extra- 
ordinary, so  unprecedented  as  death.  It  was  true  that  her 
father  was  dead,  but  it  had  happened  when  he  was  abroad, 
and  so  had  seemed  just  his  last  extreme  indulgence  of  his 
habit  of  staying  away  from  home.  But  the  clerk  sprang  to  his 
feet  and,  thrusting  his  pen  behind  his  ear  as  if  he  were  shoul- 
dering arms,  said  in  a  loud  consequential  voice:  "Ay,  I  sent 
a  messenger  along  to  your  residence  the  same  time  I  'phoned  up 
to  the  Head  Office  to  hev*  the  patient  put  on  the  danger  list! 
Everything  possible  is  done  in  the  way  of  consideration  for 
the  feelings  of  friends  and  relations !"  Yes,  this  was  a  hospi- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  205 

tal,  and  of  course  people  sometimes  died  in  hospitals.  But 
she  pushed  away  that  fact  and  set  her  eyes  steadily  on  the 
clerk's  face,  her  mind  on  the  words  he  had  just  spoken,  and 
nearly  laughed  aloud  to  see  that  here  was  that  happy  and 
comic  thing  a  Dogberry,  a  simple  soul  who  gilds  employment 
in  some  mean  and  tedious  capacity  by  conceiving  it  as  a  posi- 
tion of  power  over  great  issues.  He  took  a  large  key  down 
from  a  nail  on  the  wall  and  exclaimed,  "I'll  take  you  myself !" 
and  she  perceived  that  he  was  going  to  do  something  which  he 
should  have  delegated  to  a  porter,  so  that  he  might  continue 
to  display  himself  and  his  office  to  these  two  strangers. 

As  they  passed  under  the  arch  into  the  hospital  grounds  she 
kept  her  arm  in  Richard's  because  the  warmth  of  his  body 
made  it  seem  impossible  that  the  flesh  could  ever  grow  quite 
cold,  and  fixed  her  attention  on  the  little  clerk,  because  he 
offered  a  proof  that  the  character  of  life  was  definitely 
comic.  But  these  frail  assurances,  that  were  but  conceits  made 
by  the  mind  while  it  marked  time  before  charging  the  dreaded 
truth,  were  overcome  by  the  strangeness  of  this  place.  The 
paved  corridor  that  followed  on  and  on  was  built  with  waist- 
high  walls,  and  between  the  pillars  that  held  up  the  gabled 
wooden  roof  the  light  streamed  out  on  lawns  of  coarse  grass 
pricking  rain-gleaming  sod;  at  intervals  they  passed  the  im- 
mense swing  doors  of  the  wards,  glaringly  bright  with  brass 
and  highly  polished  gravy-coloured  wood;  at  times  another 
corridor  ran  into  it,  and  at  their  meeting-place  there  blew  a 
swift  unnatural  wind,  private  to  this  place  and  laden  with  the 
scentless  scent  of  damp  stone;  down  one  such  they  saw  a 
group  of  women  walking,  wrapped  in  cloaks  of  different  col- 
ours, flushed  and  cheered  from  some  night  meal,  making  among 
themselves  the  infantile  merriment  that  nuns  and  nurses  know. 

This  was  a  city  unlike  any  other.  It  was  set  apart  for  the 
sick;  and  some  sick  people  died;  and  of  course  there  was  no 
reason  that  people  should  not  die  merely  because  they  were 
greatly  beloved.  She  sobbed ;  and  the  clerk,  who  was  walking 
on  ahead  of  them  with  the  gait  of  one  who  carries  a  standard, 
turned  round  and,  waving  the  key,  which  there  could  be  no 
occasion  for  him  to  use,  as  all  the  doors  were  open,  said  kindly : 
"You  know  you  mustn't  be  downhearted.  I've  seen  folk  who 


206  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

came  down  on  the  verra  same  errand  as  yourselves  go  away  in 
the  morning  with  fine  an'  happy  faces."  But  after  half  a  min- 
ute the  intense  intellectual  honesty  without  which  he  could  not 
have  been  so  marked  a  character  reasserted  itself,  and  he 
turned  again  and  added  reluctantly,  "But  I've  known  more 
that  didn't."  She  laughed  on  to  Richard's  shoulder  and 
crammed  the  speeches  greedily  into  her  memory,  that  some 
night  soon  by  the  hearth  in  the  sitting-room  at  Hume  Park 
Square  she  might  repeat  them  to  her  mother,  whom  she  figured 
sitting  in  the  armchair,  looking  remarkably  well  and  wearing 
the  moire  blouse  that  she  had  given  her  for  her  birthday. 

"She's  here,"  said  the  clerk  dramatically;  and  they  stared 
at  a  door  that  looked  like  all  the  others.  It  admitted  them  to  a 
rectilinear  place  of  white  doors  and  distempered  walls.  "She's 
upstairs!"  said  the  clerk,  and  they  followed  him.  But  as  he 
reached  the  top  he  bent  double  with  a  prodigiously  respectful 
gesture,  and  cried  to  someone  they  could  not  see,  "Good  eve- 
ning, sir,  I've  brought  the  friends  of  Ninety-three,"  and  turned 
and  left  them  with  some  haste,  impelled,  Ellen  thought,  as  she 
still  amusedly  centred  her  imagination  upon  him,  by  a  fear  of 
being  rebuked  for  officiousness.  But  as  she  came  to  the  land- 
ing and  saw  the  four  people  who  were  standing  there,  having 
evidently  just  come  through  the  door,  which  one  of  them  was 
softly  closing,  everything  left  her  mind  but  the  knowledge 
that  mother  was  dying.  They  forced  it  on  her  by  their  appear- 
ance alone,  for  they  said  nothing.  They  stood  quite  still,  look- 
ing at  her  and  Richard  as  if  in  her  red  hair  and  his  tall  swarth- 
iness  they  saw  something  that,  like  the  rainbow,  laid  on  the 
eye  a  duty  of  devout  absorbent  sight ;  and  on  them  fell  a  stream 
of  harsh  electric  light  that  displayed  their  individual  char- 
acters and  the  common  quality  that  now  convinced  her  that 
mother  was  dying. 

There  were  two  men  in  white  coats,  one  sprucely  middle- 
aged,  whose  vitality  was  bubbling  in  him  like  a  pot  of  soup — 
good  soup  made  of  meat  and  bones,  with  none  of  the  gristle 
of  the  spirit  in  it;  the  other  tall  and  fair  and  young,  who 
turned  a  stethoscope  in  his  long  hands  and  looked  from  the 
lines  on  his  pale  face  to  be  a  martyr  to  thought ;  there  was  a 
grey-haired  sister  with  large  earnest  spectacles  and  a  ninepin 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  207 

body;  there  was  a  young  nurse  whose  bare  forearm,  as  she 
drew  the  door  to,  was  not  less  destitute  of  signs  of  mental 
activity  than  her  broad,  comely  face.  And  it  was  plain  from 
their  air  of  indifference  and  gravity,  of  uninterested  yet 
strained  attention,  that  they  were  newly  come  from  a  scene 
which,  though  almost  tediously  familiar  to  them,  yet  struck 
them  as  solemn.  They  were  banishing  their  impression  of  it 
from  their  consciousness,  since  they  would  not  be  able  to 
carry  on  their  work  if  they  began  to  be  excited  about  such 
every-day  events.  They  seemed  to  be  practising  a  deliberate 
stockishness  as  if  they  were  urging  the  flesh  to  resist  its  quick- 
ened pulses;  but  their  solemnity  had  fled  down  to  that  place 
beneath  the  consciousness  where  the  soul  debates  of  its  being, 
and  there,  as  could  be  seen  from  the  droop  of  the  shoulders 
and  the  nervous  contraction  of  the  hand  that  was  common  to 
all,  was  raising  doubt  and  fear.  The  nature  of  this  scene  was 
disclosed  as  a  nurse  at  the  end  of  the  passage  passed  through 
a  swing  door,  and  they  looked  for  one  moment  into  the  long 
cavern  of  a  ward,  lit  with  the  dreadful  light  which  dwells  in 
hospitals  while  the  healthy  lie  in  darkness,  that  dreadful  light 
which  throbs  like  a  headache  and  frets  like  fever,  the  very 
colour  of  pain.  This  light  is  diffused  all  over  the  world  in 
these  inhuman  parallelogrammic  cities  of  the  sick,  and  some- 
times it  comes  to  a  focus.  It  had  come  to  a  focus  now,  in  the 
room  which  they  had  just  left,  where  mother  was  lying. 

She  ran  forward  to  the  middle-aged  doctor,  whom  she  knew 
would  be  the  better  one.  "Can  you  do  nothing  for  her?" 
she  stammered  appealingly.  She  wrung  her  hands  in  what 
she  knew  to  be  a  distortion  of  ordinary  movement,  because  it 
seemed  suitable  that  to  draw  attention  to  the  extraordinary 
urgency  of  her  plea  she  should  do  extraordinary  things. 
"Mother — mother's  a  most  remarkable  woman.  .  .  ." 

The  doctor  pulled  his  moustache  and  said  that  there  was 
always  hope,  in  a  tone  that  left  none,  and  then,  as  if  he  were 
ashamed  of  his  impotence  and  were  trying  to  turn  the  moment 
into  something  else,  spoke  in  medical  terms  of  Mrs.  Melville's 
case  and  translated  them  into  ordinary  language,  so  that  he 
sounded  like  a  construing  schoolboy.  "Pulmonary  dyspnoea 
— settled  on  her  chest — heart  too  weak  to  do  a  tracheotomy — 


208  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

run  a  tube  down.  .  .  ."  They  opened  the  door  of  the  room 
and  told  her  to  go  into  it.  She  paused  at  the  threshold  and 
wept,  though  she  could  not  see  her  mother,  because  the  room 
was  so  like  her  mother's  life.  There  was  hardly  anything  in  it 
at  all.  There  were  grey  distempered  walls,  a  large  window 
covered  by  a  black  union  blind,  polished  floors,  two  cane  chairs, 
and  a  screen  of  an  impure  green  colour.  The  roadside  would 
have  been  a  richer  death-chamber,  for  among  the  grass  there 
would  have  been  several  sorts  of  weed ;  yet  this  was  appropri- 
ate enough  for  a  woman  who  had  known  neither  the  hazards 
of  being  a  rogue's  wife,  which  she  would  have  rather  enjoyed, 
nor  the  close-pressed  society  of  extreme  poverty,  in  which  she 
would  have  triumphed,  for  her  birdlike  spirits  would  have 
made  her  popular  in  any  alley,  but  had  been  locked  by  her 
husband's  innumerable  but  never  quite  criminal  failings  into 
an  existence  just  as  decently  and  minimally  furnished  as  this 
room. 

Her  daughter  clenched  her  fists  with  anger  at  it.  But  hear- 
ing a  sound  of  stertorous  breathing,  she  tiptoed  across  the 
room  and  looked  behind  the  screen.  There  Mrs.  Melville  was 
lying  on  her  back  in  a  narrow  iron  bedstead.  Her  head  was 
turned  away,  so  that  nothing  of  it  could  be  seen  but  a  thin 
grey  plait  trailing  across  the  pillow,  but  her  body  seemed  to 
have  shrunk,  and  hardly  raised  the  bedclothes.  Ellen  went 
to  the  side  of  the  bed  and  knelt  so  that  she  might  look  into 
the  hidden  face,  and  was  for  a  second  terrified  to  find  herself 
caught  in  the  wide  beam  of  two  glaring  open  eyes  that  seemed 
much  larger  than  her  mother's  had  ever  been.  All  that  dear 
face  was  changed.  The  skin  was  glazed  and  pink,  and  about 
the  gaping  mouth,  out  of  which  they  had  taken  the  false  teeth, 
there  was  a  wandering  blueness  which  seemed  to  come  and  go 
with  the  slow,  roaring  breath.  Ellen  fell  back  in  a  sitting  pos- 
ture and  looked  for  Richard,  whom  she  had  forgotten,  and 
who  was  now  standing  at  the  end  of  the  bed.  She  stretched 
out  her  hands  to  him  and  moaned ;  and  at  that  sound  recogni- 
tion stirred  in  the  centre  of  Mrs.  Melville's  immense  glazed 
gaze,  like  a  small  waking  bird  ruffling  its  feathers  on  some  in- 
most branch  of  a  large  tree. 

"Oh,  mother  dear!    Mother  dear!" 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  209 

From  that  roaring  throat  came  a  tortured,  happy  noise ;  and 
she  tried  to  make  her  lips  meet,  and  speak. 

"My  wee  lamb,  don't  try  to  speak.  Just  lie  quiet.  It's 
heaven  just  to  be  with  you.  You  needn't  speak." 

But  Mrs.  Melville  fought  to  say  it.  Something  had  struck 
her  as  so  remarkable  that  she  was  willing  to  spend  one  of  her 
last  breaths  commenting  on  it.  They  both  bent  forward  eagerly 
to  hear  it.  She  whispered:  "Nice  to  have  a  room  of  one's 
own." 

Richard  made  some  slight  exclamation,  and  she  rolled  those 
vast  eyes  towards  him,  and  fixed  him  with  what  might  have 
been  an  accusing  stare.  At  first  he  covered  his  mouth  with  his 
hand  and  looked  at  her  under  his  lids  as  if  the  accusation  were 
just,  and  then  he  remembered  it  was  not,  and  squared  his 
shoulders,  and  went  to  the  other  side  of  the  bed  and  knelt 
down.  Her  eyes  followed  him  implacably,  but  there  he  met 
them.  He  said,  "Truly  ...  I  am  all  right.  I  will  look  after 
her.  She  can't  be  poor,  whatever  happens.  Trust  me,  mother, 
she'll  be  all  right,"  and  under  the  bedclothes  he  found  her  hand, 
and  raised  it  to  his  lips.  Instantly  the  taut  stare  slackened, 
her  puckered  lids  fell,  and  she  dozed.  Tears  ran  down  Ellen's 
face,  because  her  mother  was  paying  no  attention  to  her  during 
the  last  few  moments  they  were  ever  to  be  together,  and  was 
spending  them  in  talk  she  could  not  understand  with  Richard, 
whom  she  had  thought  loved  her  too  well  to  play  this  trick 
upon  her.  She  could  have  cried  aloud  at  her  mother's  unkind 
way  of  dying.  It  struck  her  that  there  had  always  been  a  vein 
of  selfishness  and  inconsiderateness  running  through  her 
mother's  character,  which  had  come  to  a  climax  when  she  in- 
dulged in  this  preposterous  death  just  when  the  stage  was  set 
for  their  complete  happiness.  She  had  almost  succeeded  in 
fleeing  from  her  grief  into  an  aggrieved  feeling,  when  those 
poor  loose  wrinkled  lids  lifted  again,  and  the  fluttering  knowl- 
edge in  those  great  glazed  eyes  probed  the  room  for  her  and 
leapt  up  when  it  found  her. 

There  was  a  jerk  of  the  head  and  a  whisper,  "I'm  going!" 
It  was,  though  attenuated  by  the  frailty  of  the  dying  body, 
the  exact  movement,  the  exact  gesture  that  she  had  used  when, 
on  her  husband's  death,  she  had  greeted  the  news  that  she  and 


210  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

her  daughter  had  been  left  with  seventy  pounds  a  year.  Just 
like  she  had  said,  "Well,  we  must  just  economise!"  She  was 
going  to  be  just  as  brave  about  death  as  she  had  been  about 
life,  and  this,  considering  the  guarantees  Time  had  given  her 
concerning  the  nature  of  Eternity,  was  a  high  kind  of  faith. 
"Mother  dear!  Mother  dear!"  Ellen  cried,  and  though  she 
remembered  that  outside  the  door  they  had  told  her  she  must 
not,  she  kissed  her  mother  on  the  lips.  "Mother  dear!  .  .  . 
it's  been  so  ...  enjoyable  being  with  you!"  Mrs.  Melville 
made  a  pleased  noise,  and  by  a  weary  nod  of  the  head  made  it 
understood  that  she  would  prefer  not  to  speak  again;  but  her 
hand,  which  was  in  Ellen's,  patted  it. 

All  through  the  night  that  followed  they  pressed  each  other's 
hands,  and  spoke.  "Are  you  dead  ?"  Ellen's  quickened  breath 
would  ask ;  and  the  faint  pressure  would  answer,  "No.  I  have 
still  a  little  life,  and  I  am  using  it  all  to  think  of  you,  my 
darling."  And  sometimes  that  faint  pressure  would  ask,  "Are 
you  thinking  of  me,  Ellen?  These  last  few  moments  I  want 
all  of  you,"  and  Ellen's  fingers  would  say  passionately,  "I  am 
all  yours,  mother."  In  these  moments  the  forgotten  wisdom 
of  the  body,  freed  from  the  tyranny  of  the  mind  and  its  con- 
tinual running  hither  and  thither  at  the  call  of  speculation,  told 
them  consoling  things.  The  mother's  flesh,  touching  the  daugh- 
ter's, remembered  a  faint  pulse  felt  long  ago  and  marvelled  at 
this  splendid  sequel,  and  lost  fear.  Since  the  past  held  such 
a  miracle  the  future  mattered  nothing.  Existence  had  justi- 
fied itself.  The  watchers  were  surprised  to  hear  her  sigh  of 
rapture.  The  daughter's  flesh,  touching  the  mother's,  remem- 
bered life  in  the  womb,  that  loving  organ  that  by  night  and 
day  does  not  cease  to  embrace  its  beloved,  and  was  the  stronger 
for  tasting  again  that  first  best  draught  of  love  that  the  spirit 
has  not  yet  excelled. 

There  were  footsteps  in  the  corridor,  a  scuffle  and  a  freshet 
of  giggling;  the  nurses  were  going  downstairs  after  the  early 
morning  cup  of  tea  in  the  ward  kitchen.  This  laughter  that 
sounded  so  strange  because  it  was  so  late  reminded  Ellen  of 
the  first  New  Year's  Eve  that  she  and  her  mother  had  spent  in 
Edinburgh.  They  had  had  no  friends  to  first  foot  them,  but 
they  had  kept  it  up  very  well.  Mrs.  Melville  had  played  the 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  211 

piano,  and  Ellen  and  she  had  sung  half  through  the  Student's 
Song  Book,  and  they  had  had  several  glasses  of  Stone's  Ginger 
Ale,  and  there  really  had  been  a  glow  of  firelight  and  holly 
berry  brightness,  for  Mrs.  Melville,  birdlike  in  everything,  had 
a  wonderful  faculty  for  bursts  of  gaiety,  pure  in  tone  like  a 
blackbird's  song,  which  brought  out  whatever  gladness  might 
be  latent  in  any  person  or  occasion.  As  twelve  chimed  out 
they  had  stood  in  front  of  the  chimneypiece  mirror  and  raised 
their  glasses  above  their  heads,  singing,  "Auld  Lang  Syne"  in 
time  with  the  dancers  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall,  who  were 
making  such  a  night  of  it  that  several  times  the  house  had 
seemed  likely  to  fall  in. 

When  they  had  given  three  cheers  and  were  sipping  from 
their  glasses,  Mrs.  Melville  had  said  drolly:  "Did  ye  happen 
to  notice  my  arm  when  I  was  lifting  it?  Ye  did  not,  ye  vain 
wee  thing,  ye  were  looking  at  yourself  all  the  time.  But  I'll 
give  ye  one  more  chance."  And  she  had  held  it  up  so  that 
her  loose  sleeve  (she  was  wearing  a  very  handsome  mauve 
tea-gown  bought  by  Mr.  Melville  in  the  temporary  delirium  of 
his  honeymoon,  from  which  he  had  so  completely  recovered 
that  she  never  got  another)  fell  back  to  her  shoulder.  "Mother, 
I  never  knew  you  had  arms  like  that !"  She  had  never  before 
seen  them  except  when  they  were  covered  by  an  ill-fitting 
sleeve  or,  if  they  had  been  bare  to  the  elbow,  uninvitingly  ter- 
minating in  a  pair  of  housemaid's  gloves  or  hands  steamy  with 
dishwashing.  "Mother,  they're  bonny,  bonny!"  Mrs.  Mel- 
ville had  been  greatly  pleased,  but  had  made  light  of  it.  "Och, 
they're  nothing.  We  all  have  them  in  our  family.  Ye  have 
them  yourself.  Ye  must  always  remember  ye  got  them  from 
your  great-grandmother  Jeanie  Napier,  who  was  so  much  ad- 
mired by  Sir  Walter  Scott  at  her  first  ball.  And  talking  of 
dancing  .  .  ."  and  she  had  lifted  up  her  skirts  and  set  her 
feet  waggishly  twinkling  in  a  burlesque  dance,  which  she  fol- 
lowed up  with  a  travesty  of  an  opera,  a  form  of  art  she  had 
met  with  in  her  youth  and  about  which,  since  she  was  the  kind 
of  woman  who  could  have  written  songs  and  ballads  if  she  had 
lived  in  the  age  when  wood  fires  and  general  plenty  made  the 
hearth  a  home  for  poetry,  she  could  be  passionately  witty  as 
artists  are  about  work  that  springs  from  aesthetic  principles 


212  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

different  from  their  own.  It  had  been  a  lovely  performance. 
They  had  ended  in  a  tempest  of  laughter,  which  had  been 
brought  to  a  sudden  check  when  they  had  looked  at  the  clock 
and  seen  that  it  was  actually  twenty-five  to  one,  which  was 
somehow  so  much  worse  than  half -past  twelve!  It  was  that 
moment  that  had  been  recalled  to  Ellen  by  the  sudden  inter- 
ruption of  the  pulses  of  the  night  by  the  nurses'  laughter. 
That  had  been  a  beautiful  party. 

She  would  never  be  at  another,  and  looked  down  lovingly 
on  her  mother's  face,  and  was  horrified  by  its  extreme  ugliness. 
There  was  no  longer  any  gallant  Tom  Thumb  wit  strutting 
about  her  eyes  and  mouth,  no  little  tender  cheeping  voice  to 
distract  the  attention  from  the  hideous  ruin  time  had  worked  in 
her.  Age  diffused  through  her  substance,  spoiling  every  atom, 
attacking  its  contribution  to  the  scheme  of  form  and  colour. 
It  had  pitted  her  skin  with  round  pores  and  made  lie  from 
nose  to  mouth  thick  folds  such  as  coarse  and  valueless  ma- 
terial might  fall  into,  and  on  her  lids  it  was  puckered  like  silk 
on  the  lid  of  a  workbox;  but  if  she  had  opened  them  they 
would  only  have  shown  whites  that  had  gone  yellow  and  were 
reticulated  with  tiny  veins.  It  had  turned  her  nose  into  a 
beak  and  had  set  about  the  nostrils  little  red  tendril-like  lines. 
Her  lips  were  fissured  with  purple  cracks  and  showed  a  few 
tall,  narrow  teeth  standing  on  the  pale  gleaming  gum  like  sea- 
eroded  rocks  when  the  tide  is  out.  The  tendons  of  her  neck 
were  like  thick,  taut  string,  and  the  loose  arras  of  flesh  that 
hung  between  them  would  not  be  nice  to  kiss,  even  though 
one  loved  her  so  much. 

Really  she  was  very  ugly,  and  it  was  dreadful,  for  she  had 
been  very  beautiful.  Always  at  those  tea-parties  to  which 
people  were  invited  whom  Ellen  had  known  all  her  life  from 
her  mother's  anecdotes  as  spirited  girls  of  her  own  age,  but 
which  nobody  came  to  except  middle-aged  women  in  shabby 
mantles,  though  all  the  invitations  were  accepted,  someone 
was  sure  to  say:  "You  know,  my  dear,  your  mother  was  far 
the  prettiest  girl  in  Edinburgh.  Oh,  Christina,  you  were! 
.  .  ."  It  was  true,  too,  a  French  artist  who  had  come  to  Scot- 
land to  decorate  Lord  Rosebery's  ballroom  at  Dalmeny  had 
pestered  Mrs.  Melville  to  sit  to  him,  and  had  painted  a  por- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  213 

trait  of  her  which  had  been  bought  by  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum in  New  York.  Ellen  had  never  had  a  clear  idea  of  what 
the  picture  was  like,  for  though  she  had  often  asked  her  mother, 
she  had  never  got  anything  more  out  of  her  than  a  vexed, 
deprecating  murmur:  "Och,  it's  me,  and  standing  at  a  ball- 
room door  as  if  I  was  swithering  if  I  would  go  in,  and  no 
doubt  I'd  a  funny  look  on  my  face,  for  when  your  grannie 
and  me  went  down  to  his  studio  we  never  thought  he  really 
meant  to  do  it.  And  I  was  wearing  that  dress  that's  hanging 
up  in  the  attic  cupboard.  Yes,  ye  can  bring  it  down  if  ye  put 
it  back  as  ye  find  it."  It  was  a  dress  of  white  ribbed  Lille 
silk,  with  thick  lace  that  ran  in  an  upstanding  frill  round  the 
tiny  bodice  and  fell  in  flounces,  held  here  and  there  with  very 
pink  roses,  over  a  pert  little  scalloped  bustle;  she  visualised  it 
as  she  had  often  held  it  up  for  her  mother  to  look  at,  who 
would  go  on  knitting  and  say,  with  an  affectation  of  a  coldly 
critical  air,  "Mhm.  You  may  laugh  at  those  old  fashions, 
but  I  say  yon's  not  a  bad  dress." 

It  was,  Ellen  reflected,  just  such  a  dress  as  the  women  wore 
in  those  strange  worldly  and  passionate  and  self -controlled 
pictures  of  Alfred  Stevens,  the  Belgian,  of  whose  works  there 
had  once  been  a  loan  collection  in  the  National  Gallery.  Her 
imagination,  which  was  working  with  excited  power  because 
of  her  grief  and  because  her  young  body  was  intoxicated  with 
lack  of  sleep,  assumed  for  a  moment  pictorial  genius,  and  set 
on  the  blank  wall  opposite  the  portrait  of  her  mother  as  Alfred 
Stevens  would  have  painted  it.  Oh,  she  was  lovely  standing 
there  in  the  shadow,  with  her  red-gold  hair  and  her  white 
skin,  on  which  there  was  a  diffused  radiance  which  might 
have  been  a  reflection  of  her  hair,  and  her  little  body  spring- 
ing slim  and  arched  from  the  confusion  of  her  skirts!  The 
sound  of  the  "Blue  Danube"  was  making  her  eyes  bright  and 
setting  her  small  head  acock,  and  a  proud  but  modest  knowl- 
edge of  how  more  than  one  man  was  waiting  for  her  in  there 
and  would  be  pleased  and  confused  by  her  kind  mockery, 
twisted  her  mouth  with  the  crooked  smile  of  the  Campbells, 
tier  innocence  made  her  all  sweet  as  a  small,  sound  strawberry 
lying  unpicked  in  the  leaves,  and  manifested  itself  in  a  way 
that  caused  love  and  laughter  in  this  absurd  dress  whose  too 


214«  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

thick  silk,  too  tangible  lace,  evidently  proceeded  from  some 
theory  of  allurement  which  one  had  thought  all  adults  too 
sophisticated  to  hold. 

Oh,  she  had  been  beautiful!  Ellen  looked  down  in  pity  on 
the  snoring  face,  and  in  the  clairvoyance  of  her  intense  emo- 
tion she  suddenly  heard  again  the  crisp  rustle  of  the  silk  and 
looked  down  on  its  yellowed  but  immaculate  surface,  and  per- 
ceived that  its  preservation  disclosed  a  long  grief  of  her 
mother's.  That  dress  had  never  been  thrown,  though  they  had 
had  to  travel  light  when  Mr.  Melville  was  alive,  and  the  bustled 
skirt  was  a  cumbrous  thing  to  pack,  because  she  had  desired 
to  keep  some  relique  of  the  days  when  she  was  so  beautiful 
that  an  artist,  a  professional,  had  wanted  to  paint  her  portrait. 
An  inspiration  occurred  to  Ellen,  and  she  bent  down  and  said, 
"Mother,  Richard  and  me'll  go  to  New  York  and  see  your 
portrait  in  the  Museum  there."  The  dying  woman  jerked  her 
head  in  a  faint  shadow  of  a  bridle  and  made  a  pleased,  depre- 
cating noise,  and  pressed  her  daughter's  hand  more  firmly  than 
she  had  done  for  the  last  hour.  Ellen  wept,  for  though  these 
things  showed  that  her  mother  had  been  pleased  by  her  present 
words,  they  also  showed  that  she  had  been  conscious  of  her 
beauty  and  the  loss  of  it.  She  remembered  that  that  New 
Year's  Eve,  seven  years  before,  before  they  had  gone  up  to 
bed,  her  mother  had  again  held  up  her  arm  before  the  mirror 
and  had  sighed  and  said :  "They  last  longer  than  anything  else 
about  a  woman,  you  know.  Long  after  all  the  rest  of  you's  old 
ye  can  keep  a  nice  arm.  Ah,  well !  Be  thankful  you  can  keep 
that !"  and  she  had  gone  upstairs  singing  a  parody  of  the  Ride 
of  the  Valkyries  ("Go  to  bed!  Go  to  bed!"). 

Of  course  she  had  hated  growing  old  and  ugly.  It  must  be 
like  finding  the  fire  going  out  and  no  more  coal  in  the  house. 
And  it  had  been  done  to  her  violently  by  the  brute  force  of  de- 
cay, for  her  structure  was  unalterably  lovely,  the  bones  of  her 
face  were  little  but  perfect,  the  eye  lay  in  an  exquisitely-vaulted 
socket ;  and  everything  that  could  be  tended  into  seemliness  was 
seemly,  and  the  fine  line  of  her  plait  showed  that  she  brushed 
her  grey  hair  as  if  it  were  still  red  gold.  Age  had  simply  come 
and  passed  ugliness  over  her,  like  the  people  in  Paris  that  she 
had  read  about  in  the  paper  who  threw  vitriol  over  their 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  215 

enemies.  This  was  a  frightening  universe  to  live  in,  when  the 
laws  of  nature  behaved  like  very  lawless  men.  She  was  so 
young  that  till  then  she  had  thought  there  were  three  fixed 
species  of  people — the  young,  the  middle-aged,  and  the  old — 
and  she  had  never  before  realised  that  young  people  must  be- 
come old,  or  stop  living.  She  trembled  with  rage  at  this  arbi- 
trary rule,  and  sobbed  to  think  of  her  dear  mother  undergoing 
this  humiliation,  while  her  free  hand  and  a  small  base  fraction 
of  her  mind  passed  selfishly  over  her  face,  asking  incredu- 
lously if  it  must  suffer  the  same  fate.  It  seemed  marvellous 
that  people  could  live  so  placidly  when  they  knew  the  dread- 
ful terms  of  existence,  and  it  almost  seemed  as  if  they  could 
not  know  and  should  be  told  at  once  so  that  they  could  arm 
against  Providence.  She  would  have  liked  to  run  out  into  the 
sleeping  streets  and  call  on  the  citizens  to  wake  and  hear  the 
disastrous  news  that  beautiful  women  grow  old  and  lose  their 
beauty,  and  that  within  her  knowledge  this  had  happened  to 
one  who  did  not  deserve  it. 

She  raised  her  head  and  saw  that  the  young  nurse  who  had 
been  coming  in  and  out  of  the  room  all  night  was  standing  at 
the  end  of  the  bed  and  staring  at  her  with  lips  pursed  in  dis- 
approval. She  was  shocked,  Ellen  perceived,  because  she  was 
not  keeping  her  eyes  steadfastly  on  her  mother,  but  was  turning 
this  way  and  that  a  face  mobile  with  speculation;  and  for  a 
moment  she  was  convinced  by  the  girl's  reproach  into  being 
ashamed  because  her  emotion  was  not  quite  simple.  But  that 
was  nonsense;  she  was  thinking  as  well  as  feeling  about 
her  mother,  because  she  had  loved  her  with  the  head  as  well 
as  with  the  heart. 

Yet  she  knew,  and  knew  it  feverishly,  because  night  emptied 
of  sleep  is  to  the  young  a  vacuum,  in  which  their  minds  stagger 
about,  that  in  a  way  the  nurse  was  right.  If  she  had  not  been 
quite  so  clever  she  would  never  have  made  her  mother  cry, 
as  she  had  done  more  than  once  by  snapping  at  her  when  she 
had  said  stupid  things.  There  rushed  on  her  the  recollection 
of  how  she  had  once  missed  her  mother  from  the  fireside  and 
had  thought  nothing  of  it,  but  on  going  upstairs  to  wash  her 
hands,  had  found  her  sitting  quite  still  on  the  wooden  chair  in 
her  cold  bedroom,  with  the  tears  rolling  down  her  cheeks ;  and 


216  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

how,  when  Ellen  had  thrown  her  arms  round  her  neck  and 
begged  her  to  say  what  was  the  matter,  she  had  quavered, 
"You  took  me  up  so  sharply  when  I  thought  Joseph  Chamber- 
lain was  a  Liberal.  And  he  was  a  Liberal  once,  dear,  when 
your  father  and  I  were  first  married  and  he  still  talked  to  me. 
I'm  sure  Joseph  Chamberlain  was  a  Liberal  then."  At  this 
memory  Ellen  put  her  head  down  on  the  pillow  beside  her 
mother's  and  sobbed  bitterly ;  and  was  horrified  to  find  herself 
being  pleased  because  she  was  thus  giving  the  nurse  proof  of 
proper  feelings. 

She  sat  up  with  a  jerk.  She  was  not  nearly  nice  enough  to 
have  been  with  her  mother,  who  was  so  good  that  even  now, 
when  death  was  punishing  her  face  like  a  brutal  and  victorious 
boxer,  bringing  out  patches  of  pallor  and  inflamed  redness, 
making  the  flesh  fall  away  from  the  bone  so  that  the  features 
looked  different  from  what  they  had  been,  it  still  did  not  look 
at  all  terrible,  because  the  lines  on  it  had  been  traced  only  by 
diffidence  and  generosity.  With  her  ash-grey  hair,  her  wrin- 
kles, and  the  mild  unrecriminating  expression  with  which  she 
supported  her  pain,  she  looked  like  a  good  child  caught  up 
by  old  age  in  the  obedient  performance  of  some  task.  That 
was  what  she  had  always  been  most  like,  all  through  life — a 
good  child.  She  had  always  walked  as  if  someone  in  authority, 
most  likely  an  aunt,  had  just  told  her  to  mind  and  turn  her 
toes  out.  It  had  given  her,  when  she  grew  older  and  her 
shoulders  had  become  bent,  a  peculiar  tripping  gait  which  Ellen 
hated  to  remember  she  had  often  been  ashamed  of  when  they 
went  into  tea-shops  or  crossed  a  road  in  front  of  a  lot  of 
people,  but  which  she  saw  now  to  have  been  lovelier  than  any 
dance,  with  its  implication  that  all  her  errands  were  innocent. 

"Mother,  mother!"  she  moaned,  and  their  hands  pressed 
one  another,  and  there  was  more  intimate  conversation  between 
their  flesh.  Her  exalted  feelings,  as  she  came  out  of  them,  re- 
minded her  of  other  shared  occasions  of  ecstasy.  She  remem- 
bered Mrs.  Melville  clutching  excitedly  at  her  arm  as  she 
turned  her  face  away  from  the  west,  where  a  tiny  darkness 
of  banked  clouds  had  succeeded  flames,  round  which  little 
rounded  golden  cloudlets  thronged  like  Cupids  round  a  celes- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  217 

tial  bonfire,  and  crying  in  a  tone  of  gourmandise,  "I  would  go 
anywhere  for  a  good  sunset!" 

There  was  that  other  time  that  she  had  been  so  happy, 
when  they  had  watched  the  fish-wives  of  Dunbar  sitting  on 
tubs  under  great  flaring  torches  set  in  sconces  on  the  wall  be- 
hind them,  gutting  herrings  that  slid  silver  under  their  quick 
knives  and  left  blood  on  their  fingers  that  shone  like  a  fluid 
jewel,  raw-coloured  to  suit  its  wearers'  weathered  rawness, 
and  lay  on  the  cobbles  as  a  rich  dark  tesselation.  The  re- 
flected sunset  had  lain  within  the  high  walls  of  the  harbour 
as  in  a  coffin,  its  fires  made  peaceful  by  being  caught  on  oily 
waters,  and  above  the  tall  roof-trees  of  the  huddled  houses 
behind  the  stars  had  winked  like  cold,  clever  eyes  of  the  night. 
Mrs.  Melville  had  circled  about  the  scene,  crying  out  at  all  its 
momentary  shifts  from  key  to  key  of  beauty,  murmuring  that 
the  supper  would  be  spoiling  and  the  landlady  awful  annoyed, 
but  she  must  wait,  she  must  wait.  When  the  women  had 
stopped  gutting  and  had  arisen,  shaking  a  largesse  of  silver 
scales  from  their  canvas  aprons,  and  the  dying  torches  had 
split  and  guttered  and  fallen  from  the  sconces  and  been  trod- 
den out  under  the  top-boots  of  bearded  men,  she  had  gone 
home  with  Ellen  like  a  reveller  conducted  by  a  sober  friend, 
exclaiming  every  now  and  then  with  a  fearful  joy  in  her  own 
naughtiness,  "It's  nearly  nine,  but  it's  been  worth  it!" 

For  this  innocent  passion  for  beauty  the  poor  little  thing 
(Ellen  remembered  how  lightly  her  mother  had  weighed  on 
her  arm  that  night,  though  she  was  tired)  had  made  many 
sacrifices.  To  see  better  the  green  glass  of  the  unbroken 
wave  and  hear  the  kiss  the  spray  gives  the  sea  on  its  return 
she  would  sit  in  the  bow  of  the  steamer,  though  that  did  not 
suit  her  natural  timidity;  and  if  passengers  were  landed  at  a 
village  that  lay  well  on  the  shore  she  would  go  ashore,  even  if 
there  were  no  pier  and  she  had  to  go  in  a  small  boat,  though 
these  made  her  squeal  with  fright.  And  there  was  an  abso- 
lute purity  about  this  passion.  It  was  untainted  by  greed. 
She  loved  most  of  all  that  unpossessable  thing,  the  way  the 
world  looks  under  the  weather ;  and  on  the  possessable  things 
of  beauty  that  had  lain  under  her  eyes,  in  the  jewellers'  win- 


218  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

dows  in  Princes  Street  or  on  the  walls  of  the  National  Gal- 
lery, she  had  gazed  with  no  feelings  but  the  most  generous, 
acclaiming  response  to  their  quality  and  gratitude  for  the  kind- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  powers  that  be.  She  had  been  a  good 
child :  she  hadn't  snatched. 

But  when  one  thinks  of  a  good  child  faithfully  adhering  to 
the  nursery  ethic  the  thought  is  not  bearable  unless  it  is  under- 
stood that  there  is  a  kind  nurse  in  the  house  who  dresses  her 
up  for  her  walk  so  that  people  smile  on  her  in  the  streets,  and 
maybe  buys  her  a  coloured  balloon,  and  when  they  come  back 
to  tea  spreads  the  jam  thick  and  is  not  shocked  at  the  idea  of 
cake.  But  mother  was  lying  here  in  a  hospital  nightgown  of 
pink  flannel,  between  greyish  cotton  sheets  under  horse- 
blankets,  in  pain  and  about  to  die;  utterly  unrewarded.  And 
she  had  never  been  rewarded.  Ellen's  mind  ran  through  the 
arcade  of  their  time  together  and  could  find  no  moment  when 
her  mother's  life  had  been  decorated  by  any  bright  scrap  of 
that  beauty  she  adored. 

Ellen  could  see  her  rising  in  the  morning,  patting  her  yawn- 
ing mouth  with  her  poor  ugly  hands,  putting  her  flannel  dress- 
ing-gown about  her,  and  treading  clumsy  with  sleep  down  the 
creaky  stairs  to  put  the  kettle  on  the  gas,  on  her  knees  before 
the  kitchen  range,  her  head  tied  up  in  a  handkerchief  to  keep 
the  ash  out  of  her  hair,  sticking  something  into  the  fire  that 
made  disagreeable  grating  noises  which  suggested  it  was  not 
being  used  as  competently  as  it  might  be;  standing  timidly 
in  shops,  trying  to  attract  the  notice  of  assistants  who  per- 
ceived she  was  very  poor:  but  she  could  never  see  her  visited 
by  beauty.  For  her  it  had  stayed  in  the  sunset.  It  might  have 
abode  with  her  in  the  form  of  love :  indeed,  Ellen  thought  that 
would  have  been  the  best  form  it  could  have  taken,  for  she 
knew  that  she  could  be  quite  happy,  even  if  her  life  were 
harder  than  her  mother's  in  the  one  point  in  which  it  could 
be  harder  and  there  were  not  enough  to  eat,  provided  that  she 
had  Richard.  But  she  felt  it  impossible  that  her  mother  could 
have  sipped  any  real  joy  from  companionship  with  herself, 
whom  she  conceived  as  cold  and  vicious;  and  pushing  her 
memory  back  to  the  earliest  period,  where  it  hated  to  linger, 
she  perceived  innumerable  heartrending  intimations  that  the 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  219 

free  expenditure  of  her  mother's  dearness  had  brought  her  no 
comfort  of  love. 

She  could  remember  no  good  of  her  father.  It  was  his  habit 
to  wear  the  Irish  manner  of  distraction,  as  he  walked  the 
streets  with  his  chin  projected  and  his  eyes  focussed  in  the 
middle  distance  to  make  them  look  wild,  but  his  soul  was  an 
alert  workman  who  sat  tightening  screws.  By  neat  workman- 
ship he  could  lift  from  negligences  any  reproach  of  negative- 
ness  and  turn  them  into  positive  wounds.  If  he  were  going 
to  send  his  wife  too  little  money,  and  that  too  late,  he  would 
weeks  before  lead  her  to  expect  an  especially  large  cheque  so 
that  she  would  dream  of  little  extravagances,  of  new  shoes 
for  Ellen,  of  sweets  and  fruit,  until  they  were  as  good  as 
bought,  and  the  loss  of  them  added  the  last  saltness  to  the 
tears  that  flowed  when  there  had  at  last  arrived  not  quite 
enough  to  pay  the  rent.  He  was  indeed  a  specialist  in  disap- 
pointment. Ellen  guessed  that  he  had  probably  preluded  this 
neglectful  marriage  by  a  very  passionate  courtship;  probably 
he  had  said  to  mother  the  very  things  that  Richard  said  to  her, 
but  without  meaning  them.  At  that  she  shivered,  and  knew  the 
nature  of  the  sin  of  blasphemy. 

How  her  mother  had  been  betrayed !  It  was  as  monstrous  a 
story  as  anything  people  made  a  fuss  about  in  literature.  What 
had  happened  to  Ophelia  and  Desdemona  that  had  not  hap- 
pened to  her  mother  ?  Her1  heart  had  broken  just  as  theirs  did, 
and  in  the  matter  of  death  they  had  had  the  picturesque  ad- 
vantage. And  her  father,  was  he  not  as  dreadful  as  lago? 
Thinking  so  much  of  him  brought  back  the  hated  sense  of  his 
physical  presence,  and  she  saw  again  the  long,  handsome  face, 
solemn  with  concentration  on  the  task  of  self-esteem,  sur- 
mounted by  its  high,  narrow  forehead,  and  heard  the  voice, 
which  somehow  was  also  high  and  narrow,  repeating  stories 
which  invariably  ran:  "He  came  to  me  and  asked  me  .  .  . 
and  I  said,  'My  dear  fellow.  .  .  .' "  For,  like  all  Irishmen, 
he  was  fond  of  telling  stories  of  how  people  brought  him  their 
lives*  problems,  which  he  always  found  ridiculously  easy  to 
solve.  Everything  about  him,  the  sawing  gestures  of  his  white, 
oblong  hands,  the  cold  self-conscious  charm  of  his  brogue,  the 
seignorial  contempt  with  which  he  spoke  of  all  other  human 


220  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

beings  and  of  all  forms  of  human  activity  save  speculation  on 
the  Stock  Exchange,  seemed  to  have  a  secondary  meaning  of 
rejection  of  her  mother's  love  and  mockery  of  her  warm, 
loyal  spirit.  There  spoke,  too,  an  earnest  dedication  to  ma- 
lignity in  the  accomplishment  to  which  he  had  brought  the  art 
of  telling  unspoken,  and  therefore  uncontradictable,  lies  about 
her  mother.  If,  after  helping  him  on  with  his  coat  in  the  hall 
and  laying  a  loving  hand  on  his  sleeve  because  he  looked  such 
a  fine  man,  she  asked  him  for  money  to  pay  the  always  overdue 
household  bills,  or  even  to  ask  whether  they  would  wait  dinner 
for  him,  he  would  say  something  quite  just  about  the  untidiness 
of  her  hair,  follow  it  up  by  a  generalisation  on  her  unworthi- 
ness,  and  then  bang  the  door,  but  not  too  loudly,  as  if  he  had 
good-humouredly  administered  a  sharp  rap  over  the  knuckles 
to  a  really  justifiable  piece  of  female  imbecility. 

Yet  while  she  shook  with  hate  at  the  memory  of  what  her 
father  was,  she  guessed  what  would  please  her  mother  most, 
and,  leaning  over  her,  she  whispered,  "Mother,  do  you  hear 
me?  I  believe  father  did  care  for  you  quite  a  lot  in  his  own 
way."  And  the  dying  woman  lifted  her  lids  and  showed  eyes 
that  at  this  lovely  thought  had  relit  the  fires  that  had  burned 
there  when  she  was  quite  alive,  and  pressed  her  daughter's 
hands  with  a  fierce,  jubilant  pressure. 

How  dared  her  father  contemn  her  mother  so?  Her  father 
was  not  a  fool.  That  she  was  quite  submissive  to  life,  that  it 
was  unthinkable  that  she  could  rebel  against  society  or  persons, 
was  not  because  she  was  foolish,  but  because  she  was  sweet. 
To  question  a  law  would  be  to  cast  imputations  against  those 
who  made  it  and  those  who  obeyed  it,  and  that  was  a  grave 
responsibility ;  to  question  an  act  would  perhaps  be  to  give  its 
doer  occasion  for  remorse,  and  in  a  world  of  suffering  how 
could  she  take  upon  herself  to  do  that?  She  had  had  dignity. 
She  had  had  that  real  wildness  which  her  husband  had  aped, 
for  she  was  a  true  romantic.  She  had  scorned  the  plain  world 
where  they  talk  prose  more  expensively  than  most  professed 
romantics  do. 

Once  on  the  top  of  a  tram  towards  Craiglockhart  she  had 
pointed  out  to  Ellen  a  big  house  of  the  prosperous,  geometric 
sort,  with  greenhouses  and  a  garage  and  a  tennis-court,  and 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  221 

said,  "Yon's  Johnny  Paul's  house.  He  proposed  to  me  once 
at  a  picnic  on  the  Isle  of  May,  and  I  promised  him,  but  I  took 
it  back  that  very  evening  because  he  was  that  upset  at  losing 
his  umbrella.  I  knew  what  would  come  to  him  from  his 
father,  but  I  could  not  fancy  marrying  a  man  who  was  upset 
at  losing  his  umbrella/'  At  the  recollection  Ellen  laughed 
aloud,  and  cried  out,  "Mother,  you  are  such  a  wee  darling!" 

And  she  was  more  than  a  romantic ;  she  was  a  poet.  What 
was  there  in  all  Keats  and  Shelley  but  just  this  same  passion 
for  unpossessable  things  ?  It  was  vulgar,  like  despising  a  man 
because  he  has  not  made  money  though  it  is  well  known  that 
he  has  worked  hard,  to  do  her  less  honour  than  them  because 
she  was  not  able  to  set  down  in  verse  the  things  she  undoubt- 
edly felt.  And  she  was  good,  so  good — even  divinely  good. 
Life  had  given  her  so  little  beyond  her  meagre  flesh  and  break- 
able bones  that  it  might  have  seemed  impossible  that  she  should 
satisfy  the  exorbitant  demands  of  her  existence.  But  she  had 
done  that;  she  had  reared  a  child,  and  of  the  wet  wood  of 
poverty  she  had  made  a  bright  fire  on  her  hearthstone.  She 
had  done  more  than  that :  she  had  given  her  child  a  love  that 
was  unstinted  good  living  for  the  soul.  And  she  had  done 
more  than  that:  to  every  human  being  with  whom  she  came 
in  contact  she  had  made  a  little  present  of  something  over 
and  above  the  ordinary  decent  feelings  arising  from  the  situa- 
tion, something  which  was  too  sensible  and  often  too  roguish 
to  be  called  tenderness,  which  was  rather  the  handsomest  pos- 
sible agreement  with  the  other  person's  idea  of  himself,  and 
a  taking  of  his  side  in  his  struggle  with  fate.  This  power  of 
giving  gifts  was  a  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  kind. 
"Mother,  I  did  not  desairve  you!"  she  cried.  "I  do  wish  I 
had  been  better  to  you !"  And  what  had  her  mother  got  for 
being  a  romantic,  a  poet,  and  a  saint  who  worked  miracles? 
Nothing.  This  snoring  death  in  a  hospital  was  life's  final 
award  to  her.  It  could  not  possibly  be  so.  She  sat  bolt  up- 
right, her  mouth  a  round  hole  with  horror,  restating  the  prob- 
lem. But  it  was  so.  A  virtuous  woman  was  being  allowed  to 
die  without  having  been  happy. 

"Oh,  mother,  mother!"  Ellen  wailed,  wishing  they  had 
not  embarked  on  the  universe  in  such  a  leaky  raft  as  this 


222  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

world,  and  was  terrified  to  find  that  her  mother's  hand  made  no 
answer  to  her  pressure.  "Nurse !"  she  cried,  and  was  enraged 
that  no  answer  came  from  behind  the  screen,  until  the  door 
opened,  and  the  nurse,  looking  pretentiously  sensible,  followed 
the  two  doctors  to  the  bed.  She  found  it  detestable  that  this 
cold  hireling  should  have  detected  her  mother's  plight  before 
she  did,  and  when  they  took  her  away  for  a  moment  she 
stumbled  round  the  screen,  whimpering,  "Richard!"  trying  to 
behave  well,  but  wanting  to  make  just  enough  fuss  for  him  to 
realise  how  awful  she  was  feeling. 

Richard  was  sitting  in  front  of  the  fire,  rubbing  the  sleep  out 
of  his  eyes,  but  he  jumped  up  alertly  and  gathered  her  to  his 
arms. 

"Richard,  she's  going !" 

He  could  find  no  consolation  to  give  her  but  a  close,  un- 
voluptuous  embrace.  They  stood  silent,  looking  at  the  fire. 
"Is  it  not  strange,"  she  whispered,  "that  people  really  die?" 

Richard  did  not  in  the  least  participate  in  this  feeling.  He 
merely  looked  at  her  with  misted  eyes,  as  if  he  found  it  touch- 
ing that  anyone  should  feel  like  that,  and  this  reassured  her. 
Perhaps  he  knew  an  answer  to  this  problem.  It  might  be 
possible  that  he  knew  it  and  yet  could  not  tell  it,  for  she  had 
never  been  able  to  tell  him  how  she  loved  him,  though  she 
knew  quite  well.  She  lifted  her  face  to  his  that  she  might  see 
if  there  were  knowledge  in  his  eyes,  and  was  disappointed  that 
he  merely  bent  to  kiss  her. 

"No !"  she  said  fretfully,  adding  half  honestly,  half  because 
he  had  disappointed  her.  "You  mustn't.  I've  been  kissing 
mother." 

But  he  persisted;  and  they  exchanged  a  solemn  kiss,  the 
religious  sister  of  their  usual  passionate  kisses.  Then  she  shook 
with  a  sudden  access  of  anger,  and  clung  to  his  coat  lapels  and 
stared  into  his  eyes  so  that  he  should  give  her  full  attention, 
and  poured  out  her  tale  of  wrong  in  a  spate  of  whispering. 
"Every  night  ever  since  I  can  remember  I've  seen  mother 
kneeling  by  her  bed  to  say  her  prayers,  no  matter  how  cold  it 
was,  though  she  never  would  buy  herself  good  woollens,  and 
never  scamping  them  to  less  than  five  minutes.  And  what  has 
she  got  for  it?  What  has  she  got  for  it?"  But  they  called 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUJJGE  223 

for  her  behind  the  screen,  and  she  dropped  her  hands  and 
answered,  pretending  that  her  mother  was  so  well  that  it 
might  have  been  she  who  called,  "I'm  coming,  darling/' 

The  moustached  doctor,  when  she  had  come  to  the  foot  of 
the  bed,  said  gently,  "I'm  sorry ;  it's  all  over." 

She  bent  a  careful  scrutiny  on  her  mother.  "Are  you  sure?" 
she  said  wistfully. 

"Quite  sure." 

"May  I  kiss  her?" 

"Please  don't.     It  isn't  safe." 

"Ah  well !"  she  sighed.  "Then  we'd  best  be  going.  Richard, 
are  you  ready?" 

As  he  came  to  her  side  she  raised  her  head  and  breathed 
"Good  night !"  to  that  ghostly  essence  which  she  conceived 
was  floating  vaporously  in  the  upper  air  and  slipped  her  arm 
in  his.  "Good  night,  and  thank  you  for  all  you've  done  for 
her,"  she  said  to  the  people  round  the  bed.  As  she  went  to 
the  door  a  remembrance  checked  her.  "What  of  the  funeral  ?" 

"They'll  tell  you  all  that  down  at  the  office."  This  was  a 
terrifying  place,  where  there  existed  a  routine  to  meet  this 
strange  contingency  of  death ;  where  one  stepped  from  a  room 
where  drawn  blinds  cabined  in  electric  light  into  a  passage  full 
with  pale  daylight ;  and  left  a  beloved  in  that  untimely  artificial 
brightness  as  in  some  separate  and  dangerous  division  of  time ; 
where  mother  lay  dead. 

Yet  after  all,  because  terror  existed  here  and  had  written 
itself  across  the  night  as  intensely  as  beauty  ever  wrote  itself 
across  the  sky  in  sunset,  it  need  not  be  that  terror  is  one  of  the 
forces  which  dictate  the  plot  of  the  universe.  This  was  a 
catchment  area  that  drained  the  whole  city  of  terror ;  and  how 
small  it  was !  Certainly  terror  was  among  the  moods  of  the 
creative  Person,  whom  for  the  sake  of  clear  thinking  they 
found  it  necessary  to  hold  responsible  for  life,  though  being 
children  of  this  age,  and  conscious  of  humanity's  grievance, 
they  thought  of  Him  without  love.  But  it  was  one  of  the 
least  frequent  and  the  most  impermanent  of  His  moods.  All 
the  people  one  does  not  know  seem  to  be  quite  happy.  There- 
fore it  might  be  that  though  Fate  had  finally  closed  the  story 
of  Mrs.  Melville's  life,  and  had  to  the  end  shown  her  no  mercy, 


224s  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  ONE 

there  was  no  occasion  for  despair  about  the  future.  It  might 
well  be  that  no  other  life  would  ever  be  so  grievous.  There- 
fore it  was  with  not  the  least  selfish  taint  of  sorrow,  it  was 
with  tears  that  were  provoked  only  by  the  vanishment  of  their 
beloved,  that  they  passed  out  through  the  iron  gates. 

The  scene  did  not  endorse  their  hopeful  reading  of  the 
situation.  Before  them  stretched  the  avenue,  confined  on  each 
side  by  palings  with  rounded  tops  which  looked  like  slurs  on 
a  score  of  music;  to  the  right  the  hospital  lay  behind  a  flat- 
ness of  grass,  planted  in  places  with  shrubs;  and  to  the  left, 
on  the  slope  of  the  hill  on  which  the  grey  workhouse  stood, 
painted  the  very  grey  colour  of  poverty  itself,  paupers  in 
white  overalls  worked  among  bare  trees.  Through  this  grim 
landscape  they  stepped  forward,  silent  and  hand  in  hand, 
grieving  because  she  had  lived  without  glory,  she  who  was  so 
much  loved  by  them,  whose  life  was  going  to  be  50  glorious. 


BOOK  TWO 


BOOK  TWO 


CHAPTER  I 

NOW  that  they  had  taken  the  tickets  at  Willesden,  Ellen 
felt  doubtful  of  the  whole  enterprise.  It  was  very  pos- 
sible that  Richard's  mother  would  not  want  her.  In  fact,  she 
had  been  sure  that  Richard's  mother  did  not  want  her  ever 
since  they  left  Crewe.  There  a  fat,  pasty  young  man  had 
got  in  and  taken  the  seat  opposite  her,  and  had  sat  with  his 
pale  grey  eyes  dwelling  on  the  flying  landscape  with  a  slightly 
sick,  devotional  expression,  while  his  lips  moved  and  his 
plump  hands  played  with  a  small  cross  inscribed  "All  for 
Jesus"  which  hung  from  his  watch-chain.  Presently  he  had 
settled  down  to  rest  with  his  hands  folded  on  his  lap,  but  had 
shortly  been  visited  with  a  distressing  hiccup,  which  shook 
his  waistcoat  so  violently  that  the  little  cross  was  sent  flying 
up  into  the  air.  "Mother  will  laugh  when  I  tell  her  about 
that,"  she  said  to  herself,  and  did  not  remember  for  a  second 
that  her  mother  had  been  dead  six  weeks. 

This  sharp  reminder  of  the  way  they  had  conspired  together 
to  cover  the  blank  wall  of  daily  life  with  a  trellis  of  trivial 
laughter  made  her  stare  under  knitted  brows  at  the  companion- 
ship that  was  to  be  hers  henceforward.  It  could  not  be  as  good 
as  that.  Indeed,  from  such  slender  intimations  as  she  had 
received,  it  was  not  going  to  be  good  at  all.  Her  inflexibly  hon- 
est aesthetic  sense  had  made  her  lay  by  Mrs.  Yaverland's  letters 
with  the  few  trinkets  and  papers  she  desired  to  keep  for  ever, 
because  they  were  written  in  such  an  exquisite  script,  each 
black  word  written  so  finely  and  placed  so  fastidiously  on  the 
thick,  rough,  white  paper,  and  she  felt  it  a  duty  to  do  honour 
to  all  lovely  things.  But  their  contents  had  increased  her  sense 
of  bereavement.  They  had  come  like  a  north  wind  blowing 
into  a  room  that  is  already  cold.  She  had  not  wished  to  find 

227 


228  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

them  so,  for  she  disliked  becoming  so  nearly  the  subject  of  a 
comic  song  as  a  woman  who  hates  her  mother-in-law.  But 
it  was  really  the  fact  that  they  had  the  air  of  letters  written 
by  someone  who  was  sceptical  of  the  very  existence  of  the 
addressee  and  had  sent  them  merely  to  humour  some  third 
person.  And  where  the  expressions  were  strong  she  felt  that 
they  were  qualified  by  their  own  terseness.  Old  people,  she 
felt,  ought  to  writev  fluently  kind  things  in  a  running  Italian 
hand.  She  was  annoyed  too  by  the  way  Richard  always  spoke 
of  her  as  Marion.  Even  the  anecdotes  he  recounted  to  show 
how  brave  and  wise  his  mother  was  left  Ellen  a  little  tight- 
lipped.  He  said  she  was  in  favour  of  Woman's  Suffrage,  but 
it  was  almost  as  bad  as  being  against  it  to  have  such  gifts 
and  never  to  have  done  anything  with  them,  and  to  have  been 
economically  independent  all  the  days  of  her  life. 

It  became  evident  from  the  way  that  a  kind  of  heated 
physical  ill-breeding  seemed  to  fall  on  everybody  in  the  car- 
riage, and  the  way  they  began  to  lurch  against  each  other  and 
pull  packages  off  the  rack  and  from  under  the  seat  with  dis- 
regard for  each  other's  comfort,  that  they  were  approaching 
the  end  of  the  journey;  and  she  began  to  think  of  Marion  with 
terror  and  vindictiveness,  and  this  abstinence  from  a  career 
became  a  sinister  manifestation  of  that  lack  of  spiritual  sinew 
which  had  made  her  succumb  to  a  bad  man  and  handicap 
Richard  with  illegitimacy.  She  prefigured  her  swarthy  and 
obese. 

She  got  out  and  stood  quite  still  on  the  platform,  as  she 
had  been  told  to  do.  The  station  was  fine,  with  its  immense 
windless  vaults  through  which  the  engine  smoke  rose  slowly 
through  discoloured  light  and  tarnished  darkness.  She  liked 
the  people,  who  all  looked  darkly  dressed  and  meek  as  they 
hurried  along  into  the  layer  of  shadow  that  lay  along  the 
ground,  and  who  seemed  to  be  seeking  so  urgently  for  cabs  and 
porters  because  their  meagre  lives  had  convinced  them  that 
here  was  never  enough  of  anything  to  go  round.  If  she  and 
her  mother  had  ever  come  to  London  on  the  trip  they  had 
always  planned,  she  would  have  been  swinging  off  now  to  look 
for  a  taxi,  just  like  a  man ;  and  when  she  came  back  her  mother 
would  have  said,  "Why,  Ellen,  I  never  would  have  thought 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  229 

you  could  have  got  one  so  quickly."  Well,  that  would  not 
happen  now.  She  would  have  grieved  over  it ;  but  a  train  far 
down  the  line  pulled  out  of  the  station  and  disclosed  a  knot 
of  red  and  green  signal  lights  that  warmed  the  eye  and  thence 
the  heart  as  jewels  do,  and  at  that  she  was  as  happy  as  if  she 
were  turning  over  private  jewels  that  she  could  wear  on  her 
body  and  secrete  in  her  own  casket.  She  was  absorbed  in  the 
sight  when  she  heard  a  checked  soft  exclamation,  and  turning 
about  had  the  illusion  that  she  looked  into  Richard's  eyes. 

"I  am  Richard's  mother.    You  are  Richard's  wife?" 

Ellen  repeated,  "I  am  Richard's  wife,"  feeling  distressed 
that  she  had  said  it,  since  they  were  not  yet  married,  but  aware 
that  to  correct  it  would  be  trivial. 

It  was  strange  to  look  down  instead  of  up  at  those  dark  eyes, 
those  brows  which  lay  straight  black  bars  save  for  that  slight 
piratical  twist,  with  no  intervening  arch  between  them  and 
the  dusky  eyelids.  It  was  strange  to  hear  Richard's  voice 
coming  from  a  figure  blurred  with  soft,  rich,  feminine  clothes. 
It  was  strange  to  see  her  passing  through  just  such  a  moment 
of  impeded  tenderness  as  Richard  often  underwent.  Plainly 
she  wanted  to  kiss  Ellen,  but  was  prevented  by  an  intense 
physical  reserve,  and  did  not  want  to  shake  hands,  since  that 
was  inadequate,  and  this  conflict  gave  her  for  a  minute  a  stiff 
queerness  of  attitude.  She  compromised  by  taking  Ellen's 
left  hand  in  her  own  left  hand,  and  giving  it  what  was  evidently 
a  sincere,  but  not  spontaneous  pressure.  Then,  turning  away, 
she  asked,  "What  about  your  luggage?" 

"I've  just  this  suitcase.  I  sent  the  rest  in  advance.  Do 
you  not  think  that's  the  most  sensible  way?"  said  Ellen,  in  a 
tone  intended  to  convey  that  she  was  not  above  taking  advice 
from  an  older  woman. 

Mrs.  Yaverland  made  a  vague,  purring  noise,  which  seemed 
to  imply  that  she  found  material  consideration  too  puzzling  for 
discussion,  and  commanded  the  porter  with  one  of  those  slow, 
imperative  gestures  that  Richard  made  when  he  wanted  people 
to  do  things.  Walking  down  the  platform,  Ellen  wondered  why 
Richard  always  called  her  a  little  thing.  His  mother  was  far 
smaller  than  she  was,  and  broad-shouldered  too,  which  made 
her  look  dumpy.  Her  resemblance  to  Richard  became  marked 


230  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

again  when  they  got  into  the  taxi,  and  she  dealt  with  the 
porter  and  the  driver  with  just  such  quiet  murmured  com- 
mands and  dippings  into  pockets  of  loose  change  as  Richard 
on  these  occasions,  but  Ellen  did  not  find  it  in  the  least  en- 
dearing. She  was  angry  that  Richard  was  like  that,  not  be- 
cause he  was  himself,  but  because  he  was  this  woman's  son. 
When  Mrs.  Yaverland  asked  in  that  beautiful  voice  which 
was  annoyingly  qualified  by  terseness  as  her  letters  had  been, 
"And  how's  Richard?"  she  replied  consequentially,  with  the 
air  of  a  person  describing  his  garden  to  a  person  who  has  not 
one.  But  Mrs.  Yaverland  was  too  distracting  to  allow  her  to 
pursue  this  line  with  any  satisfaction.  For  she  listened  with 
murmurs  that  were  surely  contented;  and,  having  drawn  off 
her  very  thick,  very  soft  leather  gloves,  she  began  to  polish 
her  nails,  which  were  already  brighter  than  any  Ellen  had  ever 
seen,  against  the  palms  of  her  hands,  staring,  mean  while  out 
of  absent  eyes  at  the  sapphire  London  night  about  them,  which 
Ellen  was  feeling  far  too  upset  to  enjoy. 

There  was  a  tormenting  incongruity  about  this  woman : 
those  lacquered  nails  shown  on  hands  that  were  broad  and 
strong  like  a  man's;  and  the  head  that  rose  from  the  specifi- 
cally dark  fur  was  massive  and  vigilant  and  serene,  like  the 
head  of  a  great  man.  Moreover,  she  was  not  in  the  least  what 
one  expects  an  old  person  to  be.  Old  persons  ought  to  take 
up  the  position  of  audience.  They  ought,  above  all  things, 
to  give  a  rest  to  the  minds  of  young  people,  who,  goodness 
knows,  have  enough  to  worry  them,  by  being  easily  compre- 
hensible. With  mother  one  knew  exactly  where  one  was; 
one  knew  everything  that  had  happened  to  her  and  how  she 
had  felt  about  it,  and  there  was  no  question  of  anything  fresh 
ever  happening  to  her.  But  from  the  deep,  slow  breaths  this 
woman  drew,  from  the  warmth  that  seemed  to  radiate  from 
her,  from  those  purring  murmurs  which  were  evidently  the 
sounds  of  a  powerful  mental  engine  running  slow,  it  was  plain 
that  she  was  still  possessed  of  that  vitality  which  makes  people 
perform  dramas.  And  everything  about  her  threatened  that 
her  performances  would  be  too  strange. 

She  had  a  proof  of  that  when  the  taxi  turned  out  of  a  busy 
street  into  a  brilliantly  lit  courtyard  and  halted  behind  an- 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  231 

other  cab,  suspending  her  in  a  scene  that  deserved  to  be  gaped 
at  because  it  was  so  definitely  not  Edinburgh.  The  air  of  the 
little  quadrangle  was  fairly  dense  with  the  yellowed  rays  of 
extravagant  light,  and  the  walls  were  divided  not  into  shops 
and  houses,  but  into  allegorical  panels  representing  pleasure. 
They  had  stopped  outside  a  florist's,  in  whose  dismantled  win- 
dow a  girl  in  black  stretched  out  a  long  arm  towards  the  last 
vase  of  chrysanthemums,  which  pressed  against  the  glass  great 
curled  polls  almost  as  large  as  her  own  head.  It  was  impossible 
to  imagine  a  Scotswoman  practising  so  felinely  elastic  an  atti- 
tude before  the  open  street,  or  possessing  a  face  so  ecstatic 
with  pertness,  or  finding  herself  inside  a  dress  which,  though 
black,  disclaimed  all  intention  of  being  mourning  and  sought 
rather,  in  its  clinging  economy,  to  be  an  occasion  of  public 
rejoicing. 

Inconceivable,  too,  in  Edinburgh,  the  place  beside  it,  where 
behind  plate  glass  walls,  curtained  with  flimsy  brise-bises  that 
were  as  a  ground  mist,  men  and  women  ate  and  drank  under 
strong  lights  with  a  divine  shamelessness.  It  couldn't  happen 
up  there.  There  were  simply  not  the  people  to  do  it.  It  might 
be  tried  at  first ;  but  because  middle-aged  men  would  constantly 
turn  to  middle-aged  women  and  say,  "Catch  me  bringing  you 
here  again,  Elspeth.  It's  a  nice  thing  to  have  your  dinner  with 
every  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  in  the  street  watching  every 
mouthful  you  take,"  and  because  young  men  would  as  con- 
stantly have  turned  to  young  women  with  the  gasp,  "I'm  sure 
I  saw  father  passing,"  it  would  have  been  a  failure.  But  here 
it  was  a  success.  The  sight  was  like  loud,  frivolous  music. 
And  on  the  other  side  there  was  a  theatre  with  steps  leading 
tip  to  a  glittering  bow-front,  and  a  dark  wall  spattered  with  the 
white  squares  of  playbills,  under  which  a  queue  of  people 
watched  with  happy  and  indifferent  faces  a  ragged  reciter 
whose  burlesque  extravagance  of  gesture  showed  that  one  was 
now  in  a  country  more  tolerant  of  nonsense  than  the  North. 

She  wanted  to  sit  there  quietly,  savouring  the  scene.  But 
Mrs.  Yaverland  said  in  her  terse  voice:  "I've  taken  rooms  at 
the  Hapsburg  for  to-night.  I  thought  you'd  like  it.  I  do 
myself,  because  it's  near  the  river.  You  know,  we're  near  the 
river  at  Roothing."  Ellen  could  not  longer  turn  her  attention 


232  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

to.  the  spectacle  for  wondering  why  Mrs.  Yaverland  should 
speak  of  the  Thames  as  if  it  were  an  interesting  and  important 
relative.  It  could  not  possibly  be  that  Mrs.  Yaverland  felt 
about  the  river  as  she  felt  about  the  Pentlands,  for  elderly 
people  did  not  feel  things  like  that.  They  liked  a  day's  outing, 
but  they  always  sat  against  the  breakwater  with  the  news- 
paper and  the  sandwich-basket  while  one  went  exploring;  at 
least,  mother  always  did.  Trying  to  insert  some  sense  into 
the  conversation,  she  asked  politely,  "Do  you  do  much  boat- 
ing?" and  was  again  baffled  by  the  mutter,  "No,  it's  too  far 
away."  Well,  if  it  was  too  far  away  it  could  not  be  near. 
She  was  tired  by  the  long  day's  travel. 

But  the  hotel,  when  they  alighted,  pleased  her.  The  vast 
entrance  hall,  with  its  prodigality  of  tender  rosy  light,  the 
people  belonging  to  the  very  best  families  who  sat  about  in 
monstrously  large  armchairs  set  at  vast  intervals  on  the  lawny 
carpets,  were  not  in  the  least  embarrassed  by  the  publicity  of 
their  position  and  shone  physically  with  well-being  and  the 
expectation  of  pleasure;  the  grandiose  marble  corridors,  the 
splendid  version  of  a  lift,  and  the  number  of  storeys  that 
flashed  past  them,  all  very  much  the  same,  but  justifying  their 
monotony  by  their  stateliness,  like  modern  blank  verse,  made 
her  remember  solemnly  her  inner  conviction  that  she  would 
some  day  find  herself  amid  surroundings  of  luxury. 

The  necessity  of  looking  as  if  she  were  used  to  and  even 
wearied  by  this  sort  of  thing  weighed  heavily  on  her,  for  she 
felt  that  it  was  almost  dishonour  not  to  express  the  solemn  joy 
this  magnificence  was  giving  her.  So  she  stood  in  the  fine 
room  to  which  Mrs.  Yaverland  took  her,  and  after  having 
resolved  that  the  minute  she  was  left  alone  she  would  touch 
the  magnificent  crimson  velvet  roses  that  stood  out  in  high 
relief  all  over  the  wallpaper,  she  felt  that  she  could  not  gra- 
ciously withhold  praise  from  this  which  was  to  be  her  own 
special  share  of  the  splendour.  She  moved  shyly  towards  Mrs. 
Yaverland,  who  had  gone  to  the  window  and  was  looking  down 
in  the  night,  and  said  shyly,  "This  is  a  very  fine  room,"  but, 
she  knew,  too  softly  to  reach  such  markedly  inattentive  ears. 
She  stood  there  awkwardly,  feeling  herself  suspended  till  this 
woman  should  take  notice  of  her.  If  her  mother  had  been  with 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  233 

her  they  would  have  had  a  room  with  two  beds,  and  would 
have  talked  before  they  went  to  sleep  of  the  day  and  its  won- 
derful ending  in  this  grand  place.  She  sighed.  Mrs.  Yaver- 
land  turned  round. 

"Come  and  look  at  your  view,"  she  said,  and  raised  the  sash 
so  that  they  could  lean  out. 

Beneath  there  was  a  deep  drop  of  the  windless,  scentless 
darkness  that  night  brings  to  modern  cities;  then  a  narrow 
trench  of  unlit  gardens  obscured  by  the  threadbare  texture  of 
leafless  tree-tops,  then  a  broad  luminous  channel  of  roadway, 
lined  with  trees  whose  natural  substance  was  so  changed  by  the 
unnatural  light  that  they  looked  like  toy  trees  made  of  some 
brittle  composition,  and  traversed  by  tramcars  glowing  orange 
and  twanging  white  sparks  from  invisible  wires  with  their 
invisible  arms;  at  its  further  edge  a  long  procession  of  lights 
stood  with  a  certain  pomp  along  a  dark  margin,  beyond  which 
were  black  flowing  waters.  To  the  left,  from  behind  tall  cliffs 
of  masonry  pierced  with  innumerable  windows  that  were  not 
lit,  yet  gleamed  like  the  eyes  of  a  blind  dog,  there  jutted  out 
the  last  spans  of  a  bridge,  set  thickly  with  large  lights  whose 
images  bobbed  on  the  current  beneath  like  vast  yellow  water- 
flowers.  On  another  bridge  to  the  right  a  train  was  casting 
down  on  the  stream  a  redness  that  was  fire  rather  than  light. 
On  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river,  at  the  base  of  black  towers, 
barges  softly  dark  like  melancholy  lay  on  the  different  harsher 
darkness  of  the  water,  and  showed,  so  sparsely  that  they  looked 
the  richer,  a  few  ruby  and  emerald  lights.  Above,  stars 
crackled  frostily,  close  to  earth,  as  stars  do  in  winter. 

"That  is  the  river,"  said  Mrs.  Yaverland. 

She  said  it  as  if  she  desired  to  be  out  of  this  warmth,  stand- 
ing over  there  by  the  dark  parapet  marked  by  the  line  of 
lamps  close  to  the  flowing  waters ;  as  if  she  would  have  liked 
all  the  beautiful  bright  lights  to  be  extinguished,  so  that  there 
would  be  nothing  left  but  the  dark  waters. 

Ellen  went  and  sat  down  on  the  bed.  There  was  a  standard 
lamp  beside  it,  whose  light,  curbed  to  a  small  rosy  cloud  by  a 
silken  shade  like  a  fairy's  frock,  seemed  much  the  best  thing 
for  her  eyes  in  the  room.  She  was  sad  that  in  this  new  life 
in  England,  which  had  seemed  so  promising,  one  still  had  to 


234  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

turn  for  comfort  from  persons  to  things.  She  was  aware  that 
wildness  such  as  this,  such  preferences  for  walking  abroad  in 
the  chill  night  rather  than  sitting  in  warm  rooms,  for  sterile 
swift  water  rather  than  the  solid  earth  that  bears  the  crops  and 
supports  the  cities,  are  the  processes  of  poetry  working  in  the 
soul.  But  it  did  not  please  her  in  an  older  woman.  She  felt 
that  Mrs.  Melville,  who  would  have  been  trotting  about  crying 
out  at  the  magnificence  of  the  room,  would  have  been  behaving 
not  only  more  conveniently,  but  more  decently,  than  this  woman 
who  was  now  crossing  the  room  and  not  bringing  peace  with 
her.  Her  open  coat  slipped  backwards  on  her  shoulders  so  that 
it  stood  out  on  each  side  like  a  cloak  worn  by  a  romantic  actor 
striding  across  the  stage  to  the  play's  climax.  The  ultimate 
meaning  of  her  expression  could  be  no  other  than  insolence, 
for  it  gave  sign  of  some  preoccupation  so  strong  that  the  only 
force  which  could  hold  her  back  from  speaking  of  it  could  be 
contempt  for  her  hearer.  Her  face  was  shadowed  with  a  sug- 
gestion of  strong  feeling,  which  was  as  unsuitable  on  cheeks 
so  worn  as  paint  would  have  been. 

Ellen  drooped  her  head  so  that  she  need  not  look  at  her  as 
she  sat  down  on  the  bed  beside  her  with  neither  word  nor  ges- 
ture that  said  it  was  a  movement  towards  intimacy,  and  said, 
"I  hope  you're  not  very  tired."  When  Ellen  went  into  the 
bathroom  she  wept  in  her  bath,  because  the  words  could  not 
have  been  said  more  indifferently,  and  it  was  dreadful  to  sus- 
pect, as  she  had  to  later,  that  someone  so  like  Richard  was 
either  affected  or  hypocritical.  For  if  that  wildness  were 
sincere,  and  not  some  Southern  affectation  (and  she  had  al- 
ways heard  that  the  English  were  very  affected),  then  the 
nice  but  ordinary  things  she  said  when  she  was  doing  up  Ellen's 
black  taffeta  frock  must  be  all  hypocrisy  and  condescension. 

It  was  a  pity  that  she  was  so  very  like  Richard.  When 
they  had  gone  downstairs  and  taken  a  table  in  that  same  glit- 
tering room  behind  the  plate  glass  walls,  Ellen  forgot  her  un- 
comfortable feeling  that  as  she  crossed  the  room  everyone  had 
stared  at  her  feet  in  a  nasty  sort  of  way  in  her  resentful  recog- 
nition of  that  likeness.  She  was  not,  of  course,  so  handsome  as 
Richard,  though  she  was  certainly  what  people  call  "very 
striking-looking."  Ellen  felt  pleased  that  the  description 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  235 

should  be  at  once  so  appropriate  and  so  common.  She  did  not 
allow  herself  to  translate  it  from  commonness  and  admit  that 
it  is  a  phrase  that  common  people  use  when  they  want  to  say 
a  woman's  face  is  the  point  of  departure  for  a  fair  journey  of 
the  imagination.  It  was  true  that  a  certain  rough  imperfection 
was  as  definitely  a  part  of  her  quality  as  perfection  was  of  his, 
and  that  there  ran  from  her  nose  to  her  mouth  certain  heavy 
lines  that  could  never  at  any  age  befall  his  flesh  with  its  bias 
towards  beauty.  But  everything  that  so  wonderfully  made 
its  appearance  a  reference  to  romance  was  here  also:  that 
dark  skin  in  which  it  seemed  as  if  the  customary  pigment  had 
been  blended  with  mystery ;  that  extravagance  of  certain  fea- 
tures, the  largeness  of  the  eye,  the  luxury  of  lashes ;  that  man- 
ner at  once  languid  and  alert,  which  might  have  been  acquired 
by  residence  in  some  country  where  molten  excess  of  fine 
weather  was  corrected  by  gales  of  adventure.  But  though  so 
close  in  blood  and  in  seeming  to  the  most  beloved,  this  woman 
could  not  be  loved.  She  could  not  possibly  be  liked.  But  this 
was  an  irrational  emotion,  and  Ellen  hated  such,  and  she 
watched  her  for  signs  of  some  quality  that  would  justify  it. 

It  was  there.  Strong  intimations  of  a  passion  for  the  trivial 
were  brought  forth  by  movement.  As  she  bent  over  the  menu, 
and  gave  orders  that  trembled  on  the  edge  of  audibility  to  a 
waiter  whom  she  appeared  not  to  see,  she  repeatedly  raised  her 
right  hand  and  with  a  swift,  automatic  rweep  of  the  forefinger, 
on  which  her  pink  nail  flashed  like  a  polished  shell,  she 
smoothed  her  thick  eyebrows.  It  was  evidently  a  habitual 
gesture  and  used  for  something  more  than  its  apparent  purpose, 
for  when  she  had  finished  and  leaned  back  in  her  chair  she  re- 
peated it,  although  the  brows  were  still  sleek.  She  did  it, 
Ellen  told  herself  with  a  tightening  of  her  lips,  as  a  person 
who  would  like  to  spend  the  afternoon  playing  the  piano  but 
is  obliged  to  receive  a  visitor  instead  and  strums  on  her  knee. 
It  was  the  only  expression  the  occasion  allowed  for  that  pas- 
sionate care  for  her  own  person  which  accounted  for  the  inor- 
dinate beauty  of  her  clothes.  They  were,  she  said  to  herself, 
using  a  phrase  which  she  had  always  previously  disliked,  fair 
ridiculous  for  a  woman  of  that  age.  They  were,  almost  sin- 
isterly,  not  accidental.  The  very  dark  brown  hat  on  her  head 


236  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

was  just  sufficiently  like  in  shape  to  the  crowns  that  Russian 
empresses  wear  in  pictures  to  heighten  the  effect  of  majesty, 
which,  Ellen  supposed  without  approval,  was  what  she  was 
aiming  at  by  her  manner,  and  yet  plain  enough  to  heighten  that 
effect  in  another  way  by  suggesting  that  the  wearer  was  a 
woman  so  conscious  of  advantage  other  than  physical  that  she 
could  afford  to  accept  her  middle  age.  And  its  colour  was 
cunningly  chosen  to  change  her  colour  from  mere  swarthiness 
to  something  brown  that  holds  the  light  like  amber.  Ellen  felt 
pleased  at  her  own  acumen  in  discovering  the  various  fraud- 
ulent designs  of  this  hat,  and  at  the  back  of  her  mind  she  won- 
dered not  unhopefully  if  this  meant  that  she  too  would  be 
clever  about  clothes.  They  must,  moreover,  have  cost  what, 
again  using  a  phrase  that  had  always  before  seemed  quite 
horrid,  she  called  to  herself  a  pretty  penny,  for  the  materials 
had  been  made  to  satisfy  some  last  refinement  of  exigence 
which  demanded  textures  which  should  keep  their  own  qualities 
yet  ape  their  opposites,  and  the  dark  fur  on  her  coat  seemed  a 
weightless  softness  like  tulle,  and  the  chestnut-coloured  stuff 
of  the  coat  and  the  dress  beneath  it  was  thick  and  rough  like 
fur  and  yet  as  supple  as  the  yellow  silk  of  her  fichu,  which 
itself  was  sensually  heavy  with  its  own  richness. 

And  as  Ellen  looked,  the  forefinger  swept  again  the  sleek 
eyebrows.  Really,  it  was  terrible  that  Richard's  mother  should 
be  so  deep  in  crime  as  to  be  guilty  of  offences  that  are  de- 
nounced at  two  separate  sorts  of  public  meetings.  She  was 
a  squaw  who  was  all  that  men  bitterly  say  women  are,  not 
loving  life  and  the  way  of  serving  it,  undesirous  of  power, 
content  against  all  reason  with  her  corruptible  body  and  the 
clothing  and  adorning  of  it.  She  was  an  economic  parasite, 
setting  wage-slaves  to  produce  luxuries  for  her  to  enjoy  in 
idleness  while  millions  of  honest,  hard-working  people  have  to 
exist  without  the  bare  necessities  of  life.  And  now  she  was 
leaning  forward,  insolently  untroubled  by  guilt,  and  saying  in 
that  voice  that  was  too  lazy  to  articulate: 

"You  won't  like  anchovies;  those  things  they're  helping 
you  to  now." 

Ellen  made  a  confused  noise  as  if  she  were  committing  an 
indiscretion,  and  was  furious  at  having  made  it,  and  then 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  237 

furious  that  she  had  betrayed  the  fact  that  she  did  not  know 
an  anchovy  when  she  saw  it;  and  then  furious  when  the  next 
moment  Marion  let  the  waiter  put  the  limp  bronze  things  on 
her  own  plate.  Why  shouldn't  she  like  them  if  Marion  did? 
Did  Marion  think  she  was  a  child  who  liked  nothing  but  sugar- 
cakes?  When  another  waiter  came  and  Marion  murmured 
tentatively,  "WTine?"  she  answered  with  passionate  assump- 
tion of  self-possession,  "Yes,  please."  She  almost  wavered 
when  Marion,  not  raising  her  eyes,  asked,  "Red  or  white?" 
It  brought  her  back  to  that  night  in  the  office  when  Mr.  Philip 
had  made  her  drink  that  Burgundy  and  then  had  come  towards 
her,  looking  almost  hump-back  with  strangeness,  while  all  the 
shadows  in  the  corners  had  seemed  to  leap  a  little  and  then 
stand  still  in  expectation.  Fear  travelled  through  all  her  veins, 
weakening  the  blood ;  she  pressed  her  lips  together  and  braced 
her  shoulders,  living  the  occasion  over  again  till  all  the  evil 
things  dissolved  at  Richard's  knock  upon  the  door.  Because 
of  him,  how  immune  from  fear  she  had  become !  She  lifted 
her  eyes  to  Marion  and  said  confidently,  "Red,  please." 

The  blankness  of  the  gaze  that  met  her  had,  she  felt  sure, 
been  substituted  but  the  second  before  for  a  gaze  richly  com- 
plicated with  observation  and  speculation.  She  scowled  and 
remembered  that  she  was  disliking  this  woman  on  the  highest 
grounds,  and  as  she  ate  she  sent  her  eyes  round  the  restaurant, 
knowing  quite  well  the  line'of  the  thought  she  expected  it  to 
arouse  in  her.  She  was  not,  in  fact,  seeing  things  with  any 
acuteness.  There  was  a  woman  at  a  table  close  by  wearing  a 
dress  of  a  very  beautiful  blue,  the  colour  of  the  lower  flowers 
of  the  darkest  delphiniums,  but  the  sight  of  it  gave  her  none 
of  the  pleasant  physical  sensations,  the  pricking  of  the  skin, 
the  desire  to  rub  the  palms  of  the  hands  together  quickly  that 
she  usually  experienced  when  she  saw  an  intense,  clear  colour. 
But  she  saw,  though  all  the  images  seemed  to  refuse  to  travel 
from  her  eyes  to  the  nerves,  many  people  in  bright  clothes,  the 
women  showing  their  arms  and  shoulders  as  she  had  always 
heard  rich  women  do,  the  men  with  glossy  faces  which  re- 
minded her  in  their  brilliance  and  their  blankness  of  the  nails 
on  Marion's  hands;  pretty  food,  like  the  things  to  eat  in 
Keat's  St.  Agnes'  Eve,  being  carried  about  on  gleaming  dishes 


238  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

by  waiters  whose  bodies  seemed  deformed  with  obsequious- 
ness; jewel-coloured  wines  hanging  suspended  over  the  white 
cloths  in  glasses  invisible  save  where  they  glittered;  bottles 
with  gold  necks  lolling  in  pails  among  lumps  of  ice  like  tipsy 
gnomes  overcome  by  sleep  on  some  Alpine  pass ;  innumerable 
fairy  frocks  and  vessels  of  alabaster  patterned  like  a  cloud  in- 
vested strong  lights  with  the  colour  of  romance.  It  would 
have  roused  her  fatigued  imagination  had  she  not  remembered 
that  she  had  other  business  in  hand.  She  organised  her  face  to 
look  on  the  spectacle  with  innocent  pleasure,  and  then  to  darken 
at  some  serious  reflection,  and  finally  to  assume  the  expression 
which  she  had  always  thought  Socialist  leaders  ought  to  wear, 
though  at  public  meetings  she  had  noticed  they  do  not. 

She  coughed  to  attract  attention,  and  then  sighed.  "It's 
terrible,"  she  declared,  taking  good  care  that  her  voice  should 
travel  across  the  table,  "to  see  all  these  people  being  happy 
like  this  when  there  are  millions  in  want." 

Marion  set  down  her  wine-glass  with  a  movement  that, 
though  her  hands  were  clever,  seemed  clumsy,  so  indifferent 
was  she  to  the  thing  she  handled  and  the  place  she  put  it  in, 
and  looked  round  the  restaurant  with  eyes  that  were  very  like 
Richard's,  though  they  shone  from  bloodshot  whites  and  were 
not  so  bright  as  his,  nor  so  kind;  nor  so  capable,  Ellen  felt 
sure,  of  losing  all  brilliance  and  becoming  contemplative,  pas- 
sionate darkness.  She  said  in  her  rapid,  inarticulate  murmur, 
"They  don't  strike  me  as  being  particularly  happy ." 

Ellen  was  taken  aback,  and  said  in  the  tones  of  a  popular 
preacher,  "Then  what  are  they  doing  here — feasting?" 

"I  suppose  they're  here  because  it's  on  the  map  and  so  are 
they,"  she  answered  almost  querulously.  "They'd  go  any- 
where else  if  one  told  them  it  was  where  they  ought  to  be. 
Good  children,  most  people.  Anxious  to  do  the  right  thing. 
Don't  you  think?" 

Ellen  was  unprepared  for  anything  but  agreement  or  reac- 
tionary argument  from  the  old,  and  this  was  neither,  but  a 
subtlety  that  she  left  matched  in  degree  her  own  though  it 
was  probably  unsound ;  and  to  cover  her  emotions  she  lifted  her 
glass  to  her  lips.  But  really  wine  was  very  horrid.  Her 
young  mouth  was  convulsed.  And  then  she  reminded  herself 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  239 

that  it  could  not  be  horrid,  for  all  grown-up  people  like  it, 
and  that  there  had  never  been  any  occasion  when  it  was  more 
necessary  for  her  to  be  grown-up,  so  she  continued  to  drink. 
Even  after  several  mouthfuls  she  did  not  like  it,  but  she  was 
then  interrupted  by  a  soft  exclamation  from  Mrs.  Yaverland. 

"My  dear,  this  wine  is  abominable.  Don't  you  find  it  ter- 
ribly sour?" 

"Well,  I  was  thinking  so,"  said  Ellen,  "but  I  didn't  like  to 
say." 

"It's  dreadful.    It  must  be  corked." 

"Yes,  I  think  it  must,"  said  Ellen  knowingly. 

She  called  a  waiter.  "Would  you  like  to  try  some  other 
wine  ?  I  don't  think  I  will.  This  has  put  me  off  for  the  night. 
No?  Good.  Two  lemon  squashes,  one  very  sweet." 

That  was  a  good  idea  of  Mrs.  Yaverland's.  The  lemon 
squash  was  lovely  when  it  came,  and  Ellen  had  time  to  drink 
it  while  they  were  eating  the  chicken,  so  that  there  was  no 
competitive  flavour  to  spoil  the  ice  pudding.  While  they  were 
waiting  for  that  Mrs.  Yaverland  smoothed  her  eyebrows  once 
again,  and  gave  her  nails  one  more  perfunctory  polish,  and 
opened  her  mouth  to  speak,  but  caught  her  breath  and  shut  it 
again ;  and  said,  after  a  moment's  silence,  "I  hope  I've  ordered 
the  right  sort  of  pudding.  It's  so  hard  to  remember  all  these 
irrelevant  French  names.  I  wanted  you  to  have  the  one  with 
crystallised  cherries.  Richard  used  to  be  very  fond  of  it." 
She  looked  round  the  restaurant  more  lovingly.  "He  liked 
this  place  when  he  was  a  boy.  We  used  to  come  here  once  or 
twice  every  holiday  and  go  to  a  theatre  afterwards." 

But  Ellen  knew  what  it  meant  when  Richard  did  that: 
when  he  opened  his  mouth  and  then  shut  it  again  and  was 
silent,  and  then  said  very  quickly,  "Darling,  I  do  love  you." 
He  had  done  it  the  very  night  before,  in  Grand-Aunt  Jeannie's 
parlour  at  Liberton  Brae,  when  he  had  wanted  to  tell  her  that 
his  mother  had  been  married  to  someone  who  was  not  his 
father  before  he  was  born.  "It  was  not  her  fault.  My  father 
didn't  stand  by  her.  He  was  all  right  about  money.  But 
when  he  heard  about  the  child,  he  was  playing  the  fool  as  an 
aide-de-camp  with  a  royal  tour  round  the  Colonies.  And  he 
didn't  come  back.  So  she  lost  her  nerve" ;  and  that  he  had  a 


240  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

younger  stepbrother,  but  that  the  marriage  had  not  been  a 
success,  and  that  she  was  always  known  as  Mrs.  Yaverland. 
She  was  dying  to  know  what  Richard  was  like  in  his  school- 
days, and  she  was  willing  to  admit  that  Mrs.  Yaverland,  when 
she  took  him  out  for  treats,  had  probably  shown  a  better  side 
of  her  nature  that  was  not  so  bad,  but  because  of  this  knowl- 
edge she  leaned  forward  and  asked  penetratingly,  "Now,  what 
is  it  you  are  really  wanting  to  say?" 

The  older  woman  dropped  her  eyelids  guiltily,  and  then 
raised  them  full  of  an  extraordinary  laughing  light,  as  if  she 
was  beyond  all  reason  delighted  to  have  her  secret  thoughts 
discovered.  "How  you  see  through  me,  dear!"  she  said  in  a 
voice  that  was  rallying  and  affectionate,  charged  with  an 
astringent  form  of  love.  "All  that  I  wanted  to  say  was  simply 
that  I  am  so  very  glad  you  have  come.  Perhaps  for  reasons 
that  you'll  consider  tiresome  of  me.  But  Richard  has  been 
so  much  away,  and  even  when  he's  at  home  he  is  out  at  the 
works  laboratory  so  much  of  the  time,  that  I've  often  wanted 
someone  nice  to  come  and  live  in  the  house,  who'd  talk  to  me 
occasionally  and  be  a  companion.  Perhaps  you'll  think  it  is 
absurd  of  me  to  look  on  you  as  a  companion,  because  I  am 
much  older.  But  then  I  reckon  things  concerning  age  in 
rather  a  curious  way.  You're  eighteen,  aren't  you?" 

"Eighteen  past,"  Ellen  agreed,  in  a  tone  that  implied  she 
felt  a  certain  compunction  in  leaving  it  like  that,  so  near  was 
she  to  nineteen.  But  her  birthday  had  been  a  fortnight  ago. 

"And  I  was  nineteen  when  Richard  was  born.  So  you  see 
to  me  a  girl  of  eighteen  is  a  woman,  capable  of  understanding 
everything  and  feeling  everything.  So  I  hope  you  won't  mind 
if  I  treat  you  as  an  equal."  She  raised  her  wineglass  and 
looked  over  its  brim  at  the  girl's  proud,  solemn  gaze,  limpid 
with  intentions  of  being  worthy  of  this  honour,  bright  with 
the  discovery  that  perhaps  she  did  not  dislike  the  other  woman 
as  much  as  she  had  thought,  and  she  flushed  deeply  and  set 
the  wineglass  down  again,  and,  leaning  forward,  spoke  in  a 
forced,  wooden  tone.  "I  meant,  you  know,  to  say  that  to  you, 
anyhow,  whether  I  felt  it  or  not.  I  knew  you'd  like  it.  You 
see,  you  get  very  evasive  if  you've  ever  been  in  a  position 
like  mine.  You  have  to  make  servants  like  you  so  that  they 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  241 

won't  give  notice  when  they  hear  the  village  gossip,  because  you 
must  have  a  well-run  house  for  your  child.  You  have  to 
make  people  like  you  so  that  they  will  let  the  children  play  with 
yours.  So  one  gets  into  a  habit  of  saying  a  thing  that  will  be 
found  pleasant,  without  particularly  worrying  whether  it's 
sincere.  But  this  I  find  I  really  mean." 

As  always,  the  suspicion  that  she  was  in  the  presence  of 
somebody  who  had  the  singular  bad  luck  to  be  unhappy  changed 
Ellen  on  the  instant  to  something  soft  as  a  kitten,  incapable 
of  resentment  as  an  angel.  "Well,  I've  got  a  habit  of  saying 
the  things  that  will  be  found  unpleasant,"  she  said  hopefully, 
in  tones  tremulous  with  kindness.  "I'm  just  as  likely  to  say 
something  that'll  rouse  a  person's  dander  as  you  are  to  say 
something  that'll  quiet  it  down.  We  ought  to  be  awful  good 
for  one  another." 

Mrs.  Yaverland  turned  on  Ellen  a  glance  which  recognised 
her  quality  as  queer  and  precious,  yet  was  not  endearing  and 
helped  her  nothing  in  the  girl's  heart.  For  she  was  consider- 
ing Ellen  for  what  she  would  give  Richard,  what  she  would 
bring  to  satisfy  that  craving  for  living  beauty  which  was  so 
avid  in  him  and  because  of  his  fastidiousness  and  his  unwill- 
ing loyalty  to  the  soul  so  unsatisfied.  She  wondered  too 
whether  Ellen  could  lighten  those  of  his  days  which  were 
sunless  with  doubt.  And  for  that  reason  her  appreciation 
brought  her  no  nearer  the  girl  than  a  courtier  comes  to  the 
jewel  he  thinks  fair  enough  to  purchase  as  a  present  to  his 
king.  She  became  aware  of  the  obstinate  duration  of  their 
distance,  and,  trying  to  buy  intimacy  with  honesty,  because 
that  was  for  her  the  highest  price  that  could  be  paid,  she  said 
in  the  same  forced  voice,  "You  know,  you're  ever  so  much 
better  than  I  thought  you'd  be." 

"Am  I  now?  What  way?"  Like  all  young  people,  she 
loved  to  talk  about  herself.  "My  looks,  do  you  mean?  Now, 
I  was  sure  Richard  was  funning  me  when  he  told  me  I  was 
nice.  He  talks  so  much  of  my  hair  that  I  was  afraid  he 
thought  little  of  the  rest  of  me.  I'm  sure  he  told  you  that 
I'm  plain.  And  I  am.  Am  I  not?" 

"No,  you're  beautiful.  I  expected  you  to  be  beautiful." 
There  was  a  hint  of  coldness  in  her  voice,  as  if  she  disliked  the 


242  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

implication  that  her  son  might  be  lacking  in  taste.  "It's  the 
other  things  I'm  surprised  at:  that  you're  clever,  that  you're 
reflective,  that  you  feel  deeply." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  Ellen,  confidentially,  leaning 
across  the  table,  "since  we're  being  honest,  I  don't  mind  saying 
that  I  think  you're  not  over-stating  it.  But  how  do  you  know 
all  that  ?  I'm  sure  I've  been  most  petty  and  disagreeable  ever 
since  I  arrived.  I've  just  been  hoping  it's  not  the  climate  that's 
doing  it,  for  that'd  be  hard  on  Richard  and  you." 

The  other  woman  became  almost  confused.  "Oh,  that  was 
me!  That  was  me!"  she  said  earnestly.  "I  told  you  I  was 
evasive.  One  form  it  takes  is  that  when  I  meet  people  I'm 
very  much  interested  in,  I  can't  show  my  interest  directly;  I 
take  cover  behind  a  pretence  of  abstraction.  I  polish  my  nails 
and  do  silly  things  like  that,  and  people  think  I'm  cold,  and 
stupid  about  the  particular  point  they  want  me  to  see,  and 
they  try  to  attract  my  attention  by  behaving  wildly,  and  that 
usually  means  behaving  badly.  It  was  my  fault,  it  was  my 
fault!" 

"Indeed,  it  was  my  own  ill  nature,"  said  Ellen  stoutly. 
"But  let  us  cease  this  moral  babble,  as  Milton  says.  I  wish 
you'd  tell  me  why  you're  surprised  that  I  should  be  clever, 
though  you  were  quite  cairtain  that  he  would  have  chosen  a 
good-looking  gairl?" 

Mrs.  Yaverland  explained  hesitantly,  delicately.  "Richard 
has  tried  to  fall  in  love  before,  you  know.  And  he  has  always 
chosen  such  stupid  women." 

Ellen  was  puzzled  and  displeased,  though  of  course  it  was 
not  the  notion  that  he  had  tried  to  fall  in  love  with  stupid 
women  that  distressed  her,  and  not  merely  the  notion  of  his 
trying  to  fall  in  love  with  other  women.  Thank  goodness  she 
was  modern  and  therefore  without  jealousy.  "Why  did  he 
do  that?  Why  did  he  do  that?" 

There  appeared  on  Marion's  face  something  that  was  like 
the  ashes  of  archness.  Her  heart  said  jubilantly  to  itself: 
"Why,  because  he  loves  me,  his  mother,  so  far  beyond  all 
reason !  Because  he  thinks  me  perfect,  the  queen  of  all  women 
who  have  brains  and  passions,  and  all  other  women  who  pre- 
tend to  these  things  seem  pretenders  to  my  throne,  on  whom  he 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  243 

can  bestow  no  favour  without  suspicion  of  disloyalty  to  me. 
So  he  went  to  the  other  women,  who  plainly  weren't  competing 
with  me;  those  who  were  specialising  in  those  arts  that  turn 
them  from  women  into  birds  with  bright  feathers  and  a 
cheeping  song  and  lightness  unweighted  by  the  soul.  He  went 
to  them  more  readily,  I  do  believe,  because  he  knew  that  their 
lack  of  all  he  loved  in  me  would  send  him  back  to  me  the 
sooner.  I  will  not  believe  that  any  son  ever  had  for  his  mother 
a  more  absurd  infatuation.  I  am  the  happiest  woman  in  the 
world.  And  yet  I  know  it  was  not  right  it  should  be  so.  What 
is  to  happen  to  him  when  I  die  ?  And  he  takes  all  my  troubles 
on  himself  and  feels  as  if  they  were  his  own.  But  I  can  see 
that  you,  my  dear,  are  going  to  break  the  spell  that,  so  much 
against  my  will,  I've  thrown  over  my  son.  And  no  other 
woman  in  the  world  could  have  done  it.  You  have  all  the 
qualities  he  loves  in  me,  but  they  are  put  together  in  such 
a  different  mode  from  mine  that  there  cannot  possibly  be  any 
question  of  competition  between  us.  You  are  hardly  more  than 
a  child,  and  I  am  an  elderly  woman ;  you  are  red  and  fiery,  I 
am  dark  and  slow;  your  passion  grows  out  of  your  character 
like  a  flower  out  of  the  earth,  while  Heaven  knows  that  I  have 
hardly  any  character  outside  my  capacity  for  feeling.  So  he 
feels  free  to  love  you.  Oh,  my  dear,  I  am  so  grateful  to  you." 
But  because  for  many  years  she  had  been  sealed  in  reserve  to 
all  but  Richard,  she  listened  to  free  speech  coming  from  her 
lips  as  amazedly  as  a  man  cured  of  muteness  in  late  life  might 
listen  to  his  own  first  uncouth  noises.  So  she  said  none  of 
these  things,  but  murmured,  smiling  coldly,  "Oh,  there's  a 
reason.  .  .  .  I'll  tell  you  some  time.  .  .  ." 

The  girl  was  hurt.  Marion  bit  her  lip  while  she  watched 
her  crossly  pick  up  her  spoon  and  eat*  her  ice  pudding  as  if  it 
was  a  duty.  "This  is  like  old  times,"  she  essayed  feebly.  "I've 
so  often  watched  Richard  eat  it.  He  went  through  various 
stages  with  this  pudding.  When  he  was  quite  small  he  used 
to  leave  the  crystallised  cherries  to  the  very  last,  because  they 
were  nicest,  arranged  in  a  row  along  the  rim  of  his  plate, 
openly  and  shamelessly.  When  he  went  to  school  he  began 
to  be  afraid  that  people  would  think  that  babyish  if  they 
noticed  it,  and  he  used  to  leave  them  among  the  ice,  though 


244  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

somehow  they  always  did  get  left  to  the  last.  Then  later  on 
he  began  to  side  with  public  opinion  himself,  and  think  that 
perhaps  there  was  something  soft  and  unmanly  about  caring 
so  much  for  anything  to  eat,  so  he  used  to  gobble  them  first 
of  all,  trying  not  to  taste  them  very  much.  Then  there  came 
an  awful  holiday  when  he  wouldn't  have  any  at  all.  That 
was  just  before  he  insisted  on  going  to  sea.  But  then  he  came 
back — and  ever  since  he's  had  it  every  time  we  come  here, 
and  now  he  always  leaves  the  cherries  to  the  last."  She  was 
now  immersed  in  the  story  she  told;  she  was  seeing  again 
the  slow  magical  increase  of  the  small  thing  she  had  brought 
into  the  world,  and  the  variations  through  which  it  passed  in 
the  different  seasons  of  its  youth,  changing  from  brown  can- 
did gracefulness  to  a  time  of  sulky  clumsiness  and  perpetually 
abraded  knees,  and  back  again  to  gracefulness  and  willingness 
to  share  all  laughter,  yet  ever  remaining  the  small  thing  she 
had  brought  into  the  world.  With  eyes  cast  down,  trying  to 
dissemble  her  pride,  lest  the  gods  should  envy,  she  added 
harshly,  "He  was  quite  interesting  .  .  .  but  I  suppose  all  boys 
go  through  these  phases  .  .  .  Fve  had  no  other  experi- 
ences. .  .  ." 

Ellen  was  longing  to  hear  what  Richard  was  like  when  he 
was  a  boy,  but  she  had  been  stung  by  that  insolent,  smiling 
murmur,  and  she  could  do  nothing  with  any  statement  made  by 
this  woman  but  snarl  at  her.  "No  other  experience  ?"  she  ques- 
tioned peevishly.  "I  thought  Richard  said  he  had  a  half- 
brother." 

There  was  no  longer  any  pride  in  Marion's  eyes  to  dis- 
semble. She  stared  at  Ellen,  and  said  heavily,  as  one  who 
speaks  concerning  the  violation  of  a  secret,  "Did  Richard  tell 
you  that?"  Before  the  girl  had  time  to  answer  cruelly,  "Yes, 
he  tells  me  everything,"  she  had  remembered  certain  things 
which  made  her  stiffen  in  her  chair  and  keep  her  chin  up  and 
use  her  eyes  as  if  there  still  flashed  in  them  the  pride  which 
had  utterly  vanished.  "Oh,  yes,"  she  asserted,  in  that  forced 
voice,  but  very  loudly  and  deliberately.  "I  have  another  son. 
He's  a  good  boy.  His  name  is  Roger  Peacey.  You  must 
meet  him  one  day.  I  hope  you  will  like  him."  She  paused  and 
recollected  why  they  were  speaking  of  this  other  son,  and  con< 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  245 

tinued,  "But,  you  see,  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  him  when  he 
was  a  boy." 

This  struck  Ellen  as  very  strange.  She  went  on  eating  her 
ice  pudding,  but  she  cogitated  on  this  matter.  Why  had  this 
second  son  been  brought  up  away  from  his  mother?  Surely 
that  hardly  ever  happened  except  when  there  had  been  a  di- 
vorce, and  a  husband  whose  wife  had  run  away  with  another 
man  was  awarded  by  the  courts  "the  custody  of  the  child." 
Had  she  not  talked  of  this  son  in  the  over-bluff  tone  in  which 
people  talk  of  those  to  whom  they  have  done  a  wrong?  She 
was  possessed  of  the  fierce  monogamous  passion  which  ac- 
companies first  and  unachieved  love,  that  loathing  of  all  who 
are  not  content  with  the  single  sacramental  draught  which  is 
the  blood  of  God,  but  go  heating  the  body  with  unblessed  fer- 
mented wines ;  and  she  glared  sharply  under  her  brows  at  this 
woman,  who  after  losing  Richard's  father  married  another 
man  and  then,  as  it  appeared,  had  loved  yet  another  man,  as 
she  might  at  someone  whom  she  suspected  of  being  drunk.  It 
was  true  that  Richard  adored  her,  but  then  no  doubt  this  kind 
of  woman  knew  well  how  to  deceive  men.  Softly  she  made 
to  herself  the  Scottish  manifestation  of  incredulity,  "Mhm, 
.  .  .  ."  And  Marion,  for  thirty  years  vigilant  for  sounds  of 
scorn,  heard  and  perfectly  understood. 

She  remained,  however,  massively  and  unattractively  im- 
mobile. There  came  to  her  neither  word  nor  expression  to 
remove  the  girl's  dubiety.  Since  she  had  heard  such  sounds  of 
scorn  over  so  lengthy  a  period  they  no  longer  came  to  her  as 
trumpet  calls  to  action,  but  rather  as  imperatives  to  silence, 
for  above  all  things  she  desired  that  evil  things  should  come 
to  an  end,  and  she  had  learned  that  an  ugly  speech  ricochetting 
from  the  hard  wall  of  a  just  answer  may  fly  further  and  do 
worse.  She  knew  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  dispel 
Ellen's  suspicion,  because  they  must  work  together  to  make  a 
serene  home  for  Richard,  and  she  desired  to  do  so  for  her 
son's  sake,  because  she  herself  was  possessed  by  the  far  fiercer 
monogamous  passion  of  achieved  and  final  love,  which  is  dis- 
illusioned concerning  mystical  draughts,  but  knows  that  to  take 
the  bread  of  the  beloved  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs  is  sin.  She  had 
acquired  that  knowledge,  which  is  the  only  valuable  kind  of 


246  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

chastity  worth  having,  that  night  when  she  had  been  forced 
to  commit  that  profanation.  Shading  her  eyes  while  there 
rushed  over  her  the  recollection  of  a  pallid  face  looking  yellow 
as  it  bent  over  the  lamp,  she  reflected  that  even  if  she  con- 
quered this  life-long  indisposition  to  reply,  the  story  was  too 
monstrous  to  be  told.  It  would  not  be  believed.  This  girl 
would  look  at  her  under  her  brows  and  make  that  Scotch  noise 
again  and  think  her  a  liar  as  well  as  loose.  So  she  sat  silent, 
letting  Ellen  dislike  her. 

She  said  at  length,  "Let's  go  and  have  coffee  in  the  lounge." 

"I'm  sure  we  don't  need  it,"  murmured  Ellen,  as  a  tribute 
to  the  magnificence  of  the  meal. 

Crossing  the  room  was  a  terrible  business.  She  hoped  people 
were  not  staring  at  her  because  she  was  with  a  woman  whom 
they  could  perhaps  see  had  once  been  bad.  No  doubt  there 
were  signs  by  which  experienced  people  could  tell.  Richard's 
presence  seemed  all  at  once  to  have  set  behind  the  rim  of  the 
earth. 

They  sat  down  at  last  on  a  kind  of  wide  marble  platform, 
which  looked  down  on  another  restaurant  where  there  dined 
even  more  glorious  people,  none  of  whom  wore  hats,  who 
seemed  indeed  to  have  stripped  for  their  fray  with  appetite. 
They  were  nice-looking,  some  of  them,  but  not  like  Richard. 
She  looked  proudly  round  just  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  that 
there  was  not  his  like  anywhere  here,  and  found  herself  under 
the  gaze  of  Richard's  eyes,  set  in  Richard's  mother's  face. 
Doubt  left  her.  Here  was  beauty  and  generosity  and  courage 
and  brilliance.  Here  was  the  quality  of  life  she  loved.  She 
found  herself  saying  eagerly,  that  she  might  hear  that  ador- 
able voice  and  hoping  that  it  would  speak  such  strong  words 
as  he  used :  "Yes,  Marion  ?" 

"Ellen,  when  will  you  marry  Richard?" 

"We've  talked  it  over,"  said  Ellen,  with  a  certain  solemn 
fear.  "We  think  we'll  wait.  Six  months.  Out  of  respect  for 
mother." 

"But,  my  dear,  your  mother  won't  get  any  pleasure  out  of 
Richard  being  kept  waiting.  She'd  like  you  to  settle  down  and 
be  happy." 

Ellen  looked  before  her  with  blue  eyes  that  seemed  as  if  she 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  247 

saw  an  altar,  and  as  if  Marion  were  insisting  on  talking  loud 
in  church.  "I  feel  I'd  like  to  wait,  "she  murmured. 

The  older  woman  understood.  In  such  fear  of  life  had  she 
once  dallied,  one  night  long  before,  at  the  edge  of  woods,  look- 
ing across  the  clearing  at  the  belvedere,  and  the  light  in  the 
room  behind  its  pediment,  which  sent  a  fan  of  coarse  bright- 
ness out  through  the  skylight  into  the  pale  clotted  starshine. 
With  one  arm  she  clasped  a  sapling  as  if  it  were  a  lover,  and 
she  murmured,  "He  is  there,  he  is  waiting  for  me.  But  I 
will  not  go.  Another  night.  .  .  ."  She  had  been  so  glad  that 
there  was  no  moon,  so  that  he  would  not  see  her  from  his 
window.  She  had  forgotten  that  her  white  frock  would 
gleam  among  the  hazel  thickets  like  a  ghost !  So  he  had  stepped 
suddenly  from  between  the  columns  and  come  towards  her 
across  the  clearing.  It  was  strange  that  though  she  wanted 
to  run  away  she  could  make  no  motion  save  with  her  hands, 
which  fluttered  about  her  like  doves,  and  that  when  he  took 
her  in  his  arms  her  feet  had  moved  with  his  towards  the  bel- 
vedere, though  her  lips  had  cried  faintly  but  sincerely,  "No 
.  .  .  no.  .  .  ."  Such  a  fear  of  life  was  of  good  augury  for 
her  son.  Those  only  feared  life  who  were  conscious  of  powers 
within  themselves  that  would  make  their  living  a  tremendous 
thing.  She  was  exhilarated  by  the  conviction  that  this  girl 
was  almost  good  enough  for  her  son,  but  her  sense  of  the  pre- 
vailing darkness  of  fate's  climate  caused  her  to  desire  to 
make  the  promise  of  his  happiness  a  certainty,  and  she  ex- 
claimed urgently,  "Oh,  Ellen,  marry  Richard  soon !" 

Ellen  turned  a  timid,  obstinate  face  on  this  insistent  woman, 
who  would  not  leave  her  alone  with  her  delightful  fears. 
"After  all,  this  is  my  life,"  she  seemed  to  be  saying,  "and  you 
have  had  yours  to  do  what  you  willed  with.  Let  me  have 
mine." 

But  there  had  come  on  Marion  the  tribulation  that  falls  on 
unhappy  people  when  they  see  before  them  a  gleam  of  happi- 
ness. She  had  to  lay  hold  of  it.  Although  she  knew  that  she 
was  irritating  the  girl,  she  said :  "But,  Ellen,  really  you  ought 
to  marry  Richard  soon!"  She  forced  herself  to  speak  glibly 
and  without  reserve,  though  it  seemed  to  her  that  in  doing  so 
she  was  somehow  participating  in  the  glittering  vulgarity  of  the 


248  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

place  where  they  sat.  "I  want  Richard's  happiness  to  be  as- 
sured. I  want  to  see  him  certainly,  finally  happy.  I  may 
die  soon.  I'm  fifty,  and  my  heart  is  bad.  I  want  him  to  be 
so  happy  that  when  I  die  he  won't  grieve  too  much.  For,  you 
see,  he  is  far  too  fond  of  me — quite  unreasonably  fond.  And 
even  if  I  live  for  quite  a  long  time  I  still  will  be  miserable  if 
he  doesn't  find  happiness  with  someone  else.  You  see,  I've 
had  various  troubles  in  my  life.  Some  day  I  will  tell  you  what 
they  are.  I  can't  now.  I  don't  mean  in  the  least  that  I'm 
trying  to  shut  you  out  from  our  lives.  But  if  I  started  talking 
about  them  my  throat  would  close.  I  suppose  I've  been  quiet 
about  it  for  so  many  years  that  I've  lost  the  way  of  speaking 
out  everything  but  small  talk.  But  the  point  is  that  Richard 
frets  about  these  troubles  far  too  much.  He  lives  them  all 
over  again  every  time  he  sees  they  are  worrying  me.  I  want 
you  to  give  him  a  fresh,  unspoiled  life  to  look  after,  which 
will  give  him  pleasure  to  share  as  my  life  has  given  him  pain. 
Do  this  for  him.  Please  do  it.  Forgive  me  if  I'm  being  a 
nuisance  to  you.  But,  you  see,  I  feel  so  responsible  for  Rich- 
ard." She  looked  across  the  restaurant,  as  if  on  the  great 
wall  at  its  other  end  there  hung  a  vast  mirror  in  which  there 
was  reflected  the  reality  behind  all  these  appearances.  She 
seemed,  with  her  contracted  brows  and  compressed  lips,  to  be 
watching  its  image  of  her  destiny  and  checking  it  with  her 
reason's  estimate  of  the  case.  "Yes !"  she  sighed,  and  shivered 
and  stiffened  her  back  as  if  there  had  fallen  on  her  something 
magnificent  and  onerous.  "I  am  twice  as  responsible  for 
Richard  as  most  mothers  are  for  their  sons." 

She  would  have  left  it  cryptically  at  that  if  she  had  not  seen 
that  Ellen  would  have  disliked  her  as  a  mystificator.  She 
drew  her  hand  across  her  brow,  and  immediately  perceived  that 
the  gesture  had  so  evidently  expressed  dislike  of  this  obliga- 
tion to  confide  that  the  girl  was  again  alienated,  and  in  des- 
peration she  cried  out  all  she  meant.  "I'm  responsible  for  him 
in  the  usual  way.  By  loving  his  father.  Much  more  than 
the  usual  way,  most  people  would  tell  me,  because  of  course 
I  knew  it  wasn't  lawful.  But  there's  something  more  than 
that.  I  was  so  very  ill  before  he  was  born  that  the  doctor 
wanted  to  operate  and  take  him  away  from  me  long  before 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  •  249 

there  was  any  chance  of  his  living.  I  knew  he  would  be  illegit- 
imate and  that  there  would  be  much  trouble  for  us  both,  but 
I  wanted  him  so  much  that  I  couldn't  bear  them  to  kill  him. 
So  I  risked  it,  and  struggled  through  till  he  was  born.  So 
you  see  it's  twice  instead  of  once  that  I  have  willed  him  into 
the  world.  I  must  see  to  it  that  now  he  is  here  he  is  happy." 

Ellen  said  in  a  little  voice,  "That  was  very  brave  of  you," 
and  soared  into  an  amazed  exaltation  from  which  she  dipped 
suddenly  to  some  practical  consideration  that  she  must  settle 
at  once.  Her  eyes  hovered  about  Marion's  and  met  them  shyly, 
and  she  stammered  softly,  "Does  having  a  baby  hurt  very 
much?"  She  did  not  feel  at  all  disturbed  when  Marion  an- 
swered, "Yes,"  though  that  was  the  word  she  had  been  dread- 
ing, for  the  speech  she  added,  "If  the  child  is  going  to  be 
worth  while  it  always  hurts,  but  one  does  not  care,"  seemed  to 
her  one  of  those  sombre  and  heartening  things  like  "King 
Lear,"  or  the  black  line  of  the  Pentland  Hills  against  the  sky, 
which  she  felt  took  fear  from  life,  since  they  showed  it  black 
and  barren  of  comfort  and  yet  more  than  ever  beautiful.  It 
settled  her  practical  consideration :  she  had  known  that  she 
would  have  to  have  children,  because  all  married  people  did, 
but  now  she  would  look  forward  to  it  without  cowardice  and 
without  regret.  Now  she  could  soar  again  to  her  amazed  ex- 
altation and  contemplate  the  woman  who  had  given  her 
Richard. 

Even  yet  she  was  not  clear  concerning  the  processes  of 
birth.  But  in  her  mind's  eye  she  saw  Marion  lying  on  a  nar- 
row bed,  her  body  clenched  under  the  blankets,  and  her  face 
pale  and  concave  at  cheek  and  temple  with  sickness  and  per- 
secuted resolution,  holding  at  bay  with  her  will  a  crowd  of 
doctors  pressing  round  her  with  scalpels  in  their  hands,  pre- 
serving by  her  tensity  the  miracle  of  life  that  was  to  be  Rich- 
ard. If  she  had  relaxed,  the  world  would  not  have  been 
habitable,  existence  would  have  rolled  through  few  and  in- 
ferior phases.  When  she  stood  at  the  windows  of  Grand- 
Aunt's  house  on  Liberton  Brae  every  evening  after  mother's 
death  she  would  have  seen  nothing  but  dark  glass  patterned 
with  uncheering  suns  of  reflecting  gaslight,  and  beyond  a 
white  roadwav  climbed  by  anonymous  travellers.  She  would 


250  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

have  wept :  not  waited,  as  she  did,  for  the  sound  of  the  motor- 
cycle that  was  driven  with  the  dearest  recklessness  and  would 
bring  joy  with  it.  She  would  never  have  had  occasion  to  run 
to  the  door  and  open  it  impetuously  to  life.  Her  sensibility 
would  have  strayed  on  the  dreary  level  of  controlled  grief. 
It  would  not  have  sank  under  her,  deliciously  and  dangerously, 
leaving  her  to  stand  quite  paralysed  while  he  flung  off  his  cap 
and  coat  and  gauntlets  with  those  indolent,  violent  gestures, 
and  whispered  to  her  till  his  arms  were  free  and  he  could  stop 
her  heart  for  a  second  with  his  long  first  kiss. 

She  would  have  sat  all  evening  in  the  front  parlour  with 
Grand-Aunt  and  Miss  McGinnis  and  helped  with  their  sewing 
for  the  St.  Giles's  bazaar,  instead  of  appearing  among  them 
for  five  minutes  to  let  them  have  a  look  at  her  great  splendid 
man,  who  had  to  bend  to  come  in  at  the  doorway  and  give 
Miss  McGinnis  an  opportunity  to  cry,  "Dear  me,  Mr.  Yaver- 
land,  you  mind  me  so  extraordinary  of  my  own  cousin  Hendry 
who  was  drowned  at  Prestonpans.  He  was  just  your  height 
and  he  had  the  verra  look  of  you,"  and  to  allow  Grand- Aunt 
to  declare,  "Elspeth,  I  wonder  at  you.  There  was  never  a  Mc- 
Ginnis stood  more  than  five  feet  five,  and  I  do  not  remember 
that  Hendry  escaped  the  family  misfortune — mind  you,  I 
know  it's  no  a  fault — of  a  squint."  There  would  not  have 
been  those  hours  in  the  dining-room  when  life  was  lifted  to  a 
strange  and  interesting  plane  where  the  flesh  became  as 
thoughtful  as  the  spirit,  and  each  meeting  of  lips  was  as  indi- 
vidual as  an  idea  and  as  much  a  comment  on  life,  and  the 
pressing  of  a  finger  across  the  skin  could  be  watched  like  the 
unfolding  of  a  theory. 

But  those  were  the  fair-weather  uses  of  love.  It  was  in 
the  foul  weather  she  would  have  missed  him  most.  If  this 
woman  had  not  given  her  Richard  she  would  have  walked 
home  from  the  hospital  alone  and  wept  by  the  unmade  bed 
whose  pillow  was  still  dented  by  mother's  head;  she  would 
have  had  to  go  to  the  cemetery  with  only  Mr.  Mactavish 
James  and  Uncle  John  Watson  from  Glasgow,  who  would 
have  said  "Hush !"  when  she  waved  her  hand  at  the  coffin  as 
it  was  lowered  into  the  grave  and  cried,  "Good-bye,  my  wee 
lamb !"  Life  was  so  terrible  it  would  not  be  supportable  with- 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  251 

out  love.  She  laid  her  hand  on  Marion's  where  it  lay  on  the 
table,  and  stuttered,  "Oh,  it  was  brave  of  you!" 

The  intimate  contact  was  faintly  disgusting  to  the  other. 
She  answered  impatiently,  "Not  brave  at  all;  I  loved  him  so 
much  that  I  would  have  done  anything  rather  than  lose  him." 

"You  loved  him — even  then?" 

"In  a  sense  they  are  as  much  to  one  then  as  they  ever  are." 

"Ah.  .  .  ."  Ellen  continued  to  pat  the  other  woman's  hand 
and  looked  up  wonderingly  into  her  eyes,  and  was  dismayed 
to  see  there  that  this  fondling  meant  nothing  to  her.  She  was 
not  ungrateful,  but  for  such  things  her  austerity  had  no  use. 
All  that  she  wanted  was  that  assurance  for  which  she  had 
already  asked.  Ellen  was  proud,  and  she  was  a  little  hurt  that 
the  way  in  which  she  had  proposed  to  pay  the  debt  of  gratitude 
was  not  acceptable,  so  she  held  up  her  hand  and  said  coolly, 
"I'll  marry  your  son  when  you  like,  Mrs.  Yaverland." 

The  other  said  nothing  more  than  "Thank  you."  Realising 
that  she  had  said  it  even  more  than  usually  indifferently,  she 
put  out  her  hand  towards  Ellen  in  imitation  of  the  girl's  own 
movement,  but  did  it  with  so  marked  a  lack  of  spontaneity 
that  it  must,  as  she  instantly  perceived,  give  an  impression  of 
insincerity.  "How  I  fail !"  she  thought,  but  not  too  sadly,  for 
at  any  rate  she  had  got  her  son  what  he  wanted.  A  man  came 
and  stood  a  little  way  behind  her,  looking  here  and  there  for 
someone  whom  he  expected  to  find  in  the  assembly,  and  she 
turned  sharply  to  see  if  it  were  Richard ;  for  always  when  he 
was  away,  if  the  shadows  fell  across  her  path  or  there  came  a 
knock  at  the  door,  she  hoped  that  it  was  him. 

"I  am  stupid  about  him,"  she  admitted,  settling  down  in  her 
chair,  "but  if  he  had  come  it  would  have  been  lovely.  What 
would  he  think  if  he  came  now  and  found  us  two  whom  he 
loves  most  sitting  here  silent,  almost  sulky,  because  we  have 
fixed  the  time  of  his  marriage?  He  would  not  understand, 
of  course.  When  a  man  is  in  love  marriage  loses  all  import- 
ance. He  thinks  that  he  could  wait  for  ever.  He  never  real- 
ises, as  women  do,  that  it  is  not  love  that  matters  but  what 
we  do  with  it.  Why  do  I  say  as  women  do?  Only  women 
like  me  who  have  through  making  all  possible  mistakes  found 
out  the  truth  by  the  process  of  elimination.  This  girl  is  as 


252  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

improvident  as  Richard  is.  So  improvident  that  I  am  afraid 
she  is  angry  with  me  for  insisting  that  she  should  put  her 
capital  of  passion  to  good  uses."  And  indeed  Ellen  was  sit- 
ting there  very  stiffly,  turning  her  hands  together  and  looking 
down  on  them  as  if  she  despised  them  for  their  cantrips.  She 
wished  her  marriage  had  not  been  decided  quite  like  this.  Of 
course  she  wanted  to  be  married,  because,  whatever  the  mar- 
riage-laws were  like,  there  was  no  other  way  by  which  she  and 
Richard  could  tell  everybody  what  they  were  to  each  other. 
But  she  had  wanted  the  ceremony  as  secret  as  possible,  as  little 
overlooked  by  any  other  human  being,  and  she  fancifully  de- 
sired it  to  take  place  in  some  high  mountain  chapel  where  there 
was  no  congregation  but  casqued  marble  men  and  the  faith 
professed  was  so  mystical  that  the  priest  was  as  inhuman  as  a 
prayer.  Thus  their  vows  would,  though  recorded,  have  had 
the  sweet  quality  of  unwritten  melodies  that  are  sung  only 
for  the  beloved  who  has  inspired  them.  But  now  this  mar- 
riage was  to  be  performed  with  the  extremest  publicity  before 
a  crowd  of  issues,  if  not  of  persons.  It  was  to  be  a  subordinate 
episode  in  a  pageant  the  plot  of  which  she  did  not  know. 

Marion,  watching  her  face,  saw  the  faint  twitches  of  re- 
sentment playing  about  her  mouth  and  felt  some  remorse. 
"She  would  be  so  happy  just  being  Richard's  sweetheart,  if  I 
did  not  interfere,"  she  thought.  "Ah,  how  the  old  tyrannise 
over  the  young.  .  .  ."  And  there  came  on  her  a  sudden  chill 
as  she  remembered  of  what  character  that  tyranny  could  be. 
She  remembered  one  day,  when  she  was  nineteen,  waking  from 
sleep  to  find  old  people  round  her.  She  had  been  having  such 
a  lovely  dream.  On  her  lover's  arm,  she  had  been  walking 
across  the  fields  in  innocent  sunshiny  weather,  and  he  had 
been  laughing  and  full  of  a  far  greater  joy  in  impersonal 
things  than  she  had  ever  known  him.  When  he  saw  gorse  in 
life  he  would  repeat  the  country  catch,  "When  the  gorse  is 
out  of  bloom  then  kissing's  out  of  fashion,"  but  in  her  dream 
he  laughed  to  see  fire  and  water  meet  where  the  gorse  grew  on 
the  sheep-pond's  broken  lip.  He  had  liked  the  white  cloths 
bleaching  on  the  grass,  and  the  song  the  lark  in  the  sky 
twirled  like  a  lad  throwing  and  catching  a  coin,  and  the  spin- 
ney on  the  field's  slope's  heights,  where  the  tide  of  spring 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  253 

broke  in  a  green  surf  of  budding  undergrowth  at  the  feet  of 
black  bare  trees. 

During  all  the  months  her  child  was  moving  in  her  body  she 
was  visited  by  dreams  of  spring.  This  was  the  best  of  dreams : 
it  was  real.  The  lark's  song  and  Harry's  happy  laughter 
were  loud  in  her  ears;  and  she  rolled  over  in  her  bed  and 
opened  her  eyes  on  Grandmother  and  Aunt  Alphonsine.  She 
looked  away  from  them,  but  saw  only  things  that  reminded 
her  how  ill  she  was;  the  tumbler  of  milk  she  had  not  been 
able  to  drink,  set  in  a  circle  of  its  own  wetness  on  a  plate 
among  fingers  of  bread-and-butter  left  from  the  morning; 
they  had  been  told  to  tempt  her  appetite,  but  they  were  betray- 
ing that  they  felt  she  had  had  more  than  enough  temptation 
lately;  the  bottles  of  medicine  ranged  along  the  mantelpiece, 
high-shouldered  like  the  fa9ades  of  chapels  and  pasted  with 
labels  that  one  desired  to  read  as  little  as  chapel  notice-boards, 
and  with  contents  just  as  ineffectual  at  their  business  of  es- 
tablishing the  right;  the  jug  filled  with  a  bunch  of  flowers 
left  by  some  kindly  neighbour  who  did  not  know  what  was 
the  matter  with  her. 

That  raised  difficult  issues.  She  turned  her  eyes  back  to 
the  old  people.  They  looked  terrible:  Grandmother  sitting 
among  her  spreading  skirts,  her  face  trembling  with  a  weak 
forgiving  sweetness,  her  hands  clasped  on  her  stick-handle  with 
a  strength  which  showed  that  if  she  was  not  allowed  to  forgive 
she  would  be  merciless ;  Aunt  Alphonsine,  covering  her  bosom 
with  those  arms  which  looked  so  preternaturally  and  rapa- 
ciously long  in  the  tight  sleeves  that  Frenchwomen  alwrays  love, 
and  fingering  now  and  then  the  scar  that  crossed  her  oval 
face  as  if  it  were  an  amulet  the  touch  of  which  inspired  her  to 
be  righteous  and  malign.  Marion  looked  away  from  them 
again  at  the  flowers,  and  tried  to  forget  that  they  had  been 
given  by  someone  who  would  not  have  given  them  if  she  had 
known  the  truth,  and  to  perceive  simply  that  they  were  snap- 
dragons, the  velvet  homes  of  elfs — reds  and  terra-cottas  and 
yellows  that  even  in  sunlight  had  the  melting  mystery,  the 
harmony  with  serious  passion,  that  colours  have  commonly 
only  in  twilight. 

But  the  old  people  began  to  speak,  and  the  flowers  lost  their 


254.  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

power  over  her.  She  had  to  listen  while  they  proposed  that  she 
should  marry  her  lover's  butler.  He  had  made  the  offer  most 
handsomely,  it  appeared,  and  was  willing  to  do  it  at  once  and 
treat  the  child  as  if  it  were  his  own.  "What,  Peacey?"  she 
had  cried,  raising  herself  up  on  her  elbow,  "Peacey?  Ah, 
if  Harry  were  here  you  would  not  dare  to  tell  me  this !"  And 
Aunt  Alphonsine  had  said  "Hush !"  at  the  squire's  name,  being 
to  the  core  of  her  soul  a  dame  de  compagnic;  and  Grand- 
mother had  said,  with  that  use  of  the  truth  as  an  offensive 
weapon  which  seems  the  highest  form  of  truthfulness  to  many, 
"Well,  Sir  Harry  seems  in  no  great  haste  to  come  back  to 
protect  you.  He  could  come  back  if  he  liked,  you  know,  dear." 

That  was,  of  course,  quite  true.  He  could  have  come  back. 
It  was  true  that  his  return  from  the  Royal  tour  would  have 
meant  the  end  of  his  career  at  Court;  but  that  consideration 
should  have  seemed  fatuous  compared  with  his  duty  to  stand 
beside  his  woman  when  she  was  going  to  have  his  child.  She 
covered  her  face  with  the  sheet  and  lay  so  still  that  they  left 
her.  Till  the  evening  fell  she  remained  so,  keeping  the  linen 
close  to  her  drawn  about  brow  and  chin  like  an  integument 
for  her  agony  which  prevented  it  from  breaking  out  into  phys- 
ical convulsions  and  shrieked  lamentations.  It  seemed  a  sym- 
bol of  her  utter  desolation  that  such  a  proposal  should  have 
been  made  to  her  when  she  should  have  been  sacred  to  her 
child:  but  there  was  not  the  least  fear  in  her  heart  that  it 
would  ever  come  to  pass.  She  had  not  known  how  often  the 
old  people  would  come  and  sit  by  her  bed,  looking  terrible. 

Yes,  they  had  looked  terrible,  but  not,  seen  across  the  years, 
inexplicable.  Grandmother  had  spent  all  her  life  being  the 
good  wife  of  Edward  Yaverland,  and  she  had  not  liked  him, 
for  in  the  days  when  she  had  ransacked  her  memory  for  pretty 
tales  to  tell  her  little  grandchild  she  had  never  spoken  of  any 
place  she  had  visited  with  him ;  and  indeed  the  daguerreotype 
on  the  parlour  wall  showed  a  man  teased  by  developing  pros- 
perity as  by  an  inward  growth,  whose  eye  would  change  pink 
apple-blossom  to  a  computable  promise  of  cider.  It  is  not 
in  the  nature  of  any  human  being  to  admit  that  they  have 
wasted  their  whole  life,  and  since  she  had  certainly  gained  no 
treasure  of  love  from  her  forty  years  with  her  husband  it  was 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  255 

necessary  that  she  should  invent  some  good  purpose  which  that 
tedious  companionship  had  served.  The  theory  of  the  sanctity 
of  marriage  came  in  handy;  it  comforted  her  to  believe  that  by 
merely  being  a  wife  she  had  fulfilled  a  function  pleasing  to 
God  and  necessary  to  the  existence  of  society.  But  she  had 
so  often  been  assailed  by  moments  when  it  had  seemed  that 
during  all  her  living  life  had  not  begun,  that  she  had  to  be- 
lieve it  passionately  to  quiet  those  doubts.  To  have  asked  her 
to  stay  away  from  the  bedside  would  have  been  to  ask  her  to 
admit  that  her  life  was  useless,  and  that  it  would  have  been 
better  if  she  had  not  been  born.  "Lord  have  mercy  on  us  all !" 
thought  Marion,  and  forgave  her. 

It  was  not  so  easy  to  forgive  Aunt  Alphonsine,  for  her  voice 
had  been  as  sharp  as  it  could  be  without  being  honestly  angry, 
like  bad  wine  instead  of  good  vinegar,  and  had  run  indefati- 
gably  up  the  switchbacks  on  which  the  voices  of  Frenchwomen 
travel  eternally.  She  was  the  most  responsible  for  the  defeat 
of  Marion's  life.  And  yet  Aunt  Alphonsine  too  was  not  ma- 
lignant of  intent.  The  worst  of  illicit  relationships  is  the 
provocation  they  give  to  the  minds  that  hear  of  them.  When 
it  is  said  of  a  man  and  woman  that  they  are  married,  the 
imagination  sees  the  public  ceremony  before  the  altar,  the 
shared  house,  the  children,  and  all  the  sober  external  results 
of  marriage;  but  when  it  is  said  of  a  man  and  woman  that 
they  are  lovers,  the  imagination  is  confronted  with  the  fact 
of  their  love.  The  thought  of  her  niece  night  after  night  shut 
up  with  love  in  the  white  belvedere  all  the  long  time  the  moon 
required  to  rise  from  the  open  sea,  fill  all  the  creeks  with  silver, 
and  drain  them  dry  again  as  she  sunk  westwards,  must  have 
been  torment  to  one  whose  left  cheek,  from  the  long  pale  ear 
to  the  inhibited  mouth,  was  one  scar.  That  scar  was  an  epit- 
ome of  all  that  was  pathetic  and  mischievous  about  the  poor 
faint  woman,  this  being  formed  to  be  a  nun  who  had  not  been 
blessed  with  any  religion  and  so  had  to  dedicate  herself  to  the 
ridiculous  god  of  decorum.  "Your  aunt,"  Marion's  mother 
had  said  to  her,  "burned  her  face  cleaning  a  pair  of  white 
shoes  with  benzine  for  me  to  wear  at  my  first  Communion. 
It  was  a  pity  she  did  it.  And  a  pity  for  me  too,  since  I  have 
had  to  obey  her  ever  since  in  everything,  though  I  wanted 


256  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

neither  the  white  shoes  nor  the  Communion."  In  that  speech 
were  all  the  elements  of  Alphonsine's  tragedy,  and  therefore 
most  of  the  causes  of  Marion's.  The  French  thrift  that  had 
made  her  clean  the  shoes  at  home,  and  thereby  maim  herself 
into  something  that  desired  to  assassinate  love  whenever  she 
saw  it,  made  her  terribly  exercised  at  the  possibility  that  the 
family  might  have  to  support  a  fatherless  baby.  The  affection 
for  her  sister  Pamela  which  had  made  her  perform  these  serv- 
ices had  enabled  her  to  bring  up  that  lovely  child  through  all 
the  dangers  of  a  poverty-stricken  childhood  in  Paris,  in  spite 
of  a  certain  wildness  in  her  beauty  which  might,  if  unchecked, 
have  been  a  summons  to  disorder;  and  her  triumph  in  that 
respect  had  made  it  the  most  heartbreaking  disappointment 
when  the  temptations  she  thought  she  had  baulked  for  ever 
in  Paris  twenty  years  before  returned  and  claimed  so  easily 
Pamela's  child,  whom  she  thought  quite  safe,  since  to  her 
French  eyes  Marion's  dark  brows,  perpetually  knit  in  preoc- 
cupation with  the  movements  of  her  nature,  were  not  likely  to 
be  attractive  to  men. 

That  must  have  added  to  her  bitterness.  It  must  have 
seemed  very  cruel  to  Alphonsine  that  she,  with  her  smooth 
brown  hair  which  she  coiffed  perfectly,  her  long  white  hands, 
and  her  slender  body  with  its  hour-glass  waist,  which  had  a 
strange  air  of  having  been  filleted  of  all  grossness,  could  never 
know  the  joy  that  could  be  obtained  even  by  this  black  untidy 
girl.  That  would  account  for  the  passion  with  which  she 
forced  Marion  to  do  the  thing  she  did  not  want  to;  and  any 
suspicion  that  she  was  actuated  by  a  desire  to  punish  the  girl 
for  her  happiness  she  would  be  able  to  dismiss  by  recollecting 
that  certainly  she  had  served  her  little  sister's  welfare  by 
crossing  her  will.  Oh,  there  was  much  to  be  said  for  Al- 
phonsine. But  all  the  same,  it  was  a  pity  that  the  old  people 
had  interfered.  She  had  loved  Richard  so  much  that  it  would 
not  have  mattered  to  her  or  to  him  that  he  was  fatherless, 
since  from  the  inexhaustible  treasure  of  her  passion  for  him 
she  could  give  him  far  more  than  other  children  receive  from 
both  parents.  They  might  have  been  so  happy  together  if  the 
old  people  had  not  made  her  marry  Peacey. 

"But  this  is  different,"  she  said  to  herself.    "They  compelled 


CHAPTER  i  THE  JUDGE  257 

me  to  unhappiness.     I  am  forcing  happiness  on  Richard  and 
Ellen.     It  is  quite  different." 

But  she  looked  anxiously  at  the  girl.  They  smiled  at  each 
other  with  their  eyes,  as  if  they  were  friends  in  eternity.  But 
their  lips  smiled  guardedly,  for  it  might  be  that  they  were 
enemies  in  time. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  land,  which  from  the  time  they  left  London  had  been 
so  ugly  as  to  be  almost  invisible,  suddenly  took  form 
and  colour.  To  the  south,  beyond  a  creek  whose  further  bank 
was  a  raw  edge  of  gleaming  mud  hummocks  tufted  with  dark 
spriggy  heaths  and  veined  with  waterways  that  shone  white 
under  the  cold  sky,  there  stretched  a  great  quiet  plain.  It 
stretched  inimitably,  and  though  there  were  dotted  over  it 
red  barns'  and  grey  houses  and  knots  of  trees  growing  in  fel- 
lowship as  they  do  round  steadings,  and  though  its  colour  was 
a  deep  wet  fertile  green,  it  did  not  seem  as  if  it  could  be  a  hu- 
man territory.  It  could  be  regarded  only  as  a  place  for  the 
feet  of  the  clouds  which,  half  as  tall  as  the  sky,  stood  on  the 
far  horizon.  They  passed  a  station,  built  high  above  the 
marsh  on  piles,  and  looked  down  on  a  ford  that  crossed  the 
mud  bed  of  the  creek  to  a  white  road  that  drove  southwards 
into  the  plain.  A  tongue  of  the  creek  ran  inwards  beside  it 
for  a  hundred  yards  or  so;  above  its  humpy  mud  banks  the 
road  protected  itself  by  white  wooden  railings,  and  on  its 
other  side  a  line  of  telegraph  poles  ran  towards  the  skyline. 

This  was  the  beauty  of  bleakness,  but  not  as  she  had  known 
it  on  the  Pentlands.  That  was  like  tragedy.  Storms  broke 
on  the  hills,  spread  snow  or  filled  the  freshets  as  with  tears, 
and  then  departed,  leaving  the  curlews  drilling  holes  with  their 
cries  in  the  sphere  of  catharised  clear  air;  and  the  people 
there,  men  resting  on  their  staves,  women  at  their  but-and-ben 
doors,  spoke  with  magnificent  calm,  as  if  they  had  exhausted 
all  their  violence  on  certain  specific  occasions.  But  this  plain 
was  like  a  realist  mind  with  an  intense  consciousness  of  cause 
and  effect.  There  would  blow  a  warning  wind  before  the 
storm.  It  would  be  visible  afar  off  in  its  coming,  as  a  dark- 
ness, a  flaw  on  the  horizon ;  and  when  it  had  scourged  the  plain 
it  would  be  seen  for  long  travelling  on  towards  the  mainland. 
There  would  be  no  illusion  that  anything  happens  suddenly  or 
that  anything  disappears.  Here  the  long  preparation  of  earth's 

258 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  259 

events  and  their  endurance  would  be  evident.  It  would  breed 
people  like  Marion,  in  whom  a  sense  of  the  bearing  of  the  past 
on  the  present  was  so  powerful  that  it  was  often  difficult  to 
know  of  what  she  was  speaking,  and  whether  the  tale  she  was 
telling  of  Richard  referred  to  yesterday  or  his  boyhood;  that 
it  was  impossible  to  say  whether  she  smiled  because  of  mem- 
ory or  hope  when  she  leaned  forward  and  said,  "This  is  Kerith 
Island." 

"Mhm,"  said  Ellen,  since  it  was  not  her  own  country;  "it's 
verra  flat/'  And  then,  realising  that  she  was  belittling  beauty, 
she  exclaimed,  "I  must  have  said  that  for  the  sake  of  being 
disagreeable.  I  think  it's  fine,  though  very  different  from 
Scotland.  But  after  all,  why  should  everything  be  like  Scot- 
land? There's  no  real  reas'on.  I  don't  see  where  Richard's 
going  to  work,  though." 

"Three  miles  along  the  road  and  two  to  the  right.  You 
can  see  the  works  from  our  windows." 

"Of  course  you  could,"  said  Ellen  sourly;  and  explained, 
"When  I  couldn't  see  the  works  I  made  up  a  sort  of  story  for 
myself,  about  the  works  being  new  ones,  and  the  firm  not 
being  able  to  get  them  finished  in  time  for  Richard  to  start 
work,  so  that  we  had  him  hanging  about  the  house  all  to  our- 
selves. That  was  silly.  Of  course.  But  I  am  silly  about 
him.  I  suppose  I  will  soon  get  over  it." 

"I  will  hate  you  if  you  do,"  answered  Marion,  "for  I  never 
have." 

The  island  and  its  creek  fell  away  to  the  south.  The  train 
ran  now  across  the  marshes,  flat  and  green,  chequered  with 
dykes,  confined  to  the  right  by  the  steep  brim  of  a  sea-wall. 
To  the  left  a  line  of  little  hills  gained  height.  They  fell  back  in 
an  amphitheatre,  and  a  farmhouse  turned  to  the  sun  a  garden 
more  austere  with  the  salt  air  than  farmhouse  gardens  com- 
monly are,  and  behind  it,  in  the  shelter  of  the  curved  green 
escarpment,  some  tall  trees  stood  among  the  pastures.  The 
hills  rose  again  to  an  overhanging  steepness  and  broke  down 
to  a  gap  full  of  the  purples  of  bare  woods,  before  which  stood 
the  cathedralesque  ruins  of  a  brick-kiln,  with  its  tall  tower 
and  apse-like  ovens,  on  a  green  platform  of  levelled  ground 
scored  with  the  red  of  rusted  trolley-lines.  The  hill  grew 


260  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

higher  and  stood  sheer  like  a  turfed  cliff,  and  was  surmounted 
by  four  tall  towers  of  grey  stone.  It  would  have  been  im- 
pressive if  the  fall  of  the  cliff  had  not  been  disfigured  by  a 
large  shed  of  pink  corrugated  iron  with  "Hallelujah  Army" 
painted  on  its  roof,  which  was  built  on  a  shelf  where  some 
hawthorn  trees  and  bramble  bushes  found  a  footing. 

Then  for  a  time,  after  an  oblique  valley  had  cleft  the  range, 
an  elm-hedge  ran  along  the  crest,  till  there  looked  down  a 
grey  church  with  a  squinting  spire  and  grey-black  yews  set 
about  it,  and  something  white  like  a  monument  standing  up  on 
a  mound  beside  it.  Woods  appeared  and  receded,  leaving  the 
hilltop  bare,  and  returned;  there  was  a  broken  hedge  of  haw- 
thorn; a  downward  line  of  trees  scored  the  gentler  slope  of 
the  escarpment,  and  from  a  square  red  brick  house  on  the 
skyline  there  fell  an  orchard. 

"That  is  our  house  up  there.  That  is  Yaverland's  End," 
said  Marion;  "and  look  on  the  other  window,  that  is  Roothing 
Harbour."  But  all  Ellen  could  see  was  a  forest  of  slim 
straight  poles  leaning  everywhere  above  the  sea-wall.  "Those 
are  the  masts  of  the  fishing-boats,"  said  Marion  indifferently, 
even  grumbling,  as  was  her  way  when  she  spoke  of  the  things 
she  loved.  "Don't  laugh  at  this  place,  though  it  is  all  mud. 
I  can  tell  you  the  Elizabethan  adventures  drew  most  of  their 
seamen  from  here  and  Tilbury."  The  sea-wall  stopped,  and 
beyond  a  foreshore  of  coal-dust  and  soiled  shingle  and  tarred 
huts,  such  as  is  found  always  where  men  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships,  lay  a  bare  harbour  basin  in  which  fishing-boats  lolled 
on  their  sides  in  silver  mud.  Further  out,  smaller  boats  lay 
tidily  on  a  bar  of  coarse  grass  that  ran  out  from  a  sea- walled 
island  that  lay  alongside  the  marsh  the  train  had  just  crossed, 
with  a  farm  and  its  orchard  lying  at  the  end  it  thrust  into  the 
harbour. 

Now  the  train  ran  slower,  and  it  could  be  seen  that  the  line 
had  been  driven  violently  through  the  high  street  with  no 
decent  clearance,  for  to  its  left  it  could  be  seen  that  it  was 
overhung  by  the  backs  of  cottages,  and  on  its  right  was  the 
cobbled  roadway  on  which  walked  bearded  men  in  jerseys 
and  top  boots  and  women  with  that  look  of  brine  rather  than 
bloom  which  is  characteristic  of  fishing-villages.  It  was  a 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  261 

fairly  continuous  street  of  huddled  houses  and  drysalters' 
shops,  with  their  stock  of  thigh-long  boots  and  lanthorns  and 
sou'-westers  heaped  behind  small  dark  panes,  and  here  and 
there  came  quays,  with  whitened  cottages  and  trim  gardens 
facing  dingy  wharf-offices  over  paved  squares  set  about  the 
edge  with  capstans,  and  beyond  a  Thames  barge  showing  its 
furled  red  sail  against  a  vista  of  shining  mud-flats  and  the 
vast  sky  that  belonged  to  this  district.  This  hard,  bright, 
clouded  day,  which  dwelt  on  the  grey  in  all  things,  even  in 
the  rough  grass,  made  all  look  brittle  and  trivial  and,  however 
old,  still  unhistoric.  It  could  be  imagined  that  the  people 
who  lived  under  this  immense  sky  might  come  to  lose  the  com- 
mon human  sense  of  their  own  supreme  importance,  and  to  sus- 
pect themselves  as  being  of  no  more  account  than  the  fishes 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  channel;  and  might  look  up  at 
the  great  cloud  galleons  floating  above  and  wonder  if  these  had 
not  for  ship's  company  beings  that  would  be  to  them  as  men 
are  to  fishes.  It  was  a  place,  Ellen  saw,  that  might  well  have 
engendered  such  a  curious  vigorous  lethargy  as  Marion's.  Its 
breezes  were  clean  enough  to  nourish  strength,  but  there  was 
something  about  the  proportions  of  the  scene  that  would  breed 
scepticism  concerning  the  value  of  all  activities. 

To  see  things  in  terms  of  Marion  was  weak,  and  a  distrac- 
tion from  delight.  She  could  neither  behold  things  for  their 
own  sake,  as  she  had  up  till  this  autumn,  nor  for  Richard's 
sake,  as  she  had  till  yesterday  evening.  But  she  was  forced 
to  wonder  about  this  woman  who  had  been  able  to  be  Rich- 
ard's mother  and  who  was  yet  so  little  what  one  approved  of, 
and  who  yet  again  was  so  picturesque  that  one  had  to  watch 
her  with  pleasant  intensity  that  was  not  usually  associated 
with  dislike.  Even  when  she  looked  on  the  astonishing  scene 
that  lay  before  her  when  they  stepped  on  to  the  platform  at 
Roothing  station  she  was  distracted  from  her  astonishment  by 
a  sense  that  she  would  afterwards  maintain  an  argument  on 
the  subject  with  Marion.  The  surroundings  were  ignobly 
ugly,  as  eggshells  and  scraps  of  newspaper  trodden  into  waste 
ground  are  ugly.  She  was  prepared  to  tell  Marion  so,  though 
it  was  her  own  town.  There  had  not  been  sufficient  space  to 
build  a  station  with  the  up  and  down  platforms  facing  each 


262  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

other,  so  th°.  up  platform  was  further  back,  facing  the  har- 
bour, and  this  down  platform  was  overshadowed  on  its  land- 
ward  side  by  smoke-grimed  cottages  and  tenements  which 
rose  on  high  ground  in  a  peak  of  squalor.  Seawards  one 
looked  over  a  goods-siding,  where  there  stood  a  few  wagons 
of  cockle-shells  and  a  cinderpath  esplanade  on  to  a  vast  plain 
of  mud. 

It  could  not  be  beautiful.  A  plain  of  mud  could  not  be 
beautiful.  Yet  the  mind  could  dwell  contentedly  on  this  new 
and  curious  estate  of  nature,  this  substance  that  was  neither 
earth  nor  water,  this  place  that  was  neither  land  nor  sea.  It 
had  its  own  colours :  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  couchant  cloud 
whose  mane  was  brassy  with  sunshine  that  had  lodged  in  the 
upper  air  it  was  purple;  otherwise  it  was  brown;  and  where 
the  light  lay  it  was  as  bright  as  polished  steel,  yet  giving  in  its 
brightness  some  indication  of  its  sucking  softness.  It  had  its 
own  strange  scenery;  it  had  its  undulations  and  its  fissures, 
and  between  deep,  rounded,  shining  banks,  a  course  marked 
here  and  there  by  the  stripped  white  ghosts  of  sapling  trees, 
a  winding  river  flowed  out  to  the  far-off  channel  of  the  estu- 
ary which  lay  a  grey  bar  under  the  dark  line  of  the  Kentish 
hills. 

It  supported  its  own  life;  hundreds  of  black  fishing-boats 
and  some  large  vessels  leaned  this  way  and  that,  high  and  dry 
on  the  mud,  like  flies  stuck  on  a  window-pane,  and  up  on  the 
river,  whose  waters  were  now  flowing  from  the  sea  to  the 
land,  men  came  in  dingeys,  not  rowing,  but  bending  their 
bodies  indolently  and  without  effort,  because  they  were  back- 
watering  with  the  tide,  so  that  their  swift  advance  looked  as 
if  it  were  made  easy  by  sorcery.  They  slackened  speed  before 
they  came  to  the  wharf,  which  just  here  by  the  station  jutted 
out  in  a  grey  bastion  surmounted  by  the  minatory  finger  of  a 
derrick,  and  some  of  them  climbed  out  and  put  round  baskets 
full  of  shining  fish  upon  their  heads,  and,  walking  struttingly 
to  brake  their  heavy  boots  on  the  slippery  mud,  followed  a  wet 
track  up  to  the  cinderpath.  They  looked  stunted  and  fantastic 
like  Oriental  chessmen.  It  was  strange,  but  this  place  had  the 
quality  of  beauty.  It  laid  a  finger  on  the  heart.  Moreover, 
it  had  a  solemn  quality  of  importance.  It  was  as  if  this  was 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  263 

the  primeval  ooze  from  which  the  first  life  stirred  and  crawled 
landwards  to  begin  to  make  this  a  memorable  star. 

Again  the  place  seemed  curiously  like  Marion.  It  might 
well  have  been  that  to  make  her  a  god  had  modelled  a  figure 
in  this  estuary  mud  and  breathed  on  it,  so  much,  in  her  sallow 
colouring  and  the  heavy  impassivity  which  was  the  equivalent 
of  the  plain's  monotony,  did  she  partake  of  its  qualities.  Her 
behaviour,  too,  was  grand  like  the  plain  and  yet  composed  of 
material  that,  as  stuff  for  grandeur,  was  almost  as  uncom- 
promising as  mud. 

She  took  the  girl  to  the  railings  and  made  her  look  out  to  the 
sea,  saying,  "It  is  rather  fine  in  a  queer  way,  isn't  it?  When 
I  was  a  girl  I  could  run  dryshod  to  the  very  end  of  the  chan- 
nel, and  I  daresay  Richard  could  still." 

Ellen  shivered.  "Is  it  not  terribly  lonely  out  there,  just 
under  the  sky?" 

"Oh,  no,  it's  pleasant  to  be  on  innocent  territory,  with  no 
human  beings  living  on  it.  There  was  a  feeling,  so  far  as  I 
can  remember  it,  of  extraordinary  freedom  and  lightness." 
She  spoke  with  a  sincere  cynicism,  an  easy  grimness  that  ap- 
peared quite  dreadful  to  Ellen.  The  girl  looked  appealingly 
at  her,  asking  her  not  to  give  the  sanction  of  her  impressive 
personality  to  such  hopelessness  about  life,  but  had  the  ill 
luck  to  catch  her  in  the  act  of  a  practical  demonstration  of  her 
dislike  for  her  fellow-creatures.  Now  that  the  train  had 
puffed  out  of  the  station  the  station-master,  a  silver-haired 
old  man  with  a  red  face  on  which  amiability  clung  like  a  lather, 
had  come  to  Marion's  side  and  was  saying  that  he  had  not 
seen  her  for  a  long  time,  and  asking  how  Richard  was  and 
when  he  was  coming  back.  Ellen  thought  this  was  very  kind 
of  him,  but  Marion  evidently  found  it  tiresome,  and  hardly 
troubled  to  conceal  the  fact,  walking  rather  more  quickly  along 
the  platform  than  the  old  man  could  manage  and  giving  no 
more  answer  to  his  questions  than  a  vague  smiling  "Hum." 
Ellen  hoped  that  the  poor  old  man  was  not  offended. 

She  found  something  dubious,  too,  about  the  lack  of  apology 
with  which  Marion  led  her  into  the  squalor  outside  the  station, 
over  the  level  crossing,  with  its  cobblestones  veined  with  coal- 
dust,  past  the  fish-shop  hung  with  the  horrid  bleeding  frills 


264  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  skate,  and  the  barber's  shop  that  also  sold  journals,  which 
stood  with  unreluctant  posters  at  the  exact  point  where  news- 
papers and  flypapers  meet;  and  up  the  winding  road,  which 
sent  a  trail  of  square  red  villas  with  broken  prams  standing 
in  unplanted  or  unweeded  gardens  up  the  hill  in  the  direction 
of  the  church  and  the  castle  they  had  passed  in  the  train. 
But  surely  she  ought  to  have  apologised  for  bringing  a  girl 
reared  in  Edinburgh  to  a  place  like  this.  On  one  of  the  gates 
they  passed  was  written  "Hiemath,"  and  there  was  something 
very  characteristic  of  the  jerry-built  and  decaying  place  in  the 
cheap  sentiment  that  had  been  too  slovenly  to  spell  its  own 
name  correctly.  Yet  to  the  left,  over  the  housetops  of  foul 
black  streets  running  upwards  from  the  railway-lines,  there 
shone  the  great  silver  plain,  and  afar  off  a  channel  set  with 
white  sailing-ships  and  steamers,  and  dark  majestic  hills.  But 
because  of  the  quality  of  the  place,  and  perhaps  of  her  guide, 
she  did  not  want  to  recognise  its  beauty. 

When  they  came  to  a  cross-roads  that  followed  westward 
along  the  crest  of  the  hill  she  would  hardly  admit  to  herself 
that  this  was  better,  that  this  was  indeed  right  in  a  unique 
way,  and  that  the  dignified  houses  of  white  marl  and  oak  on 
one  side  of  the  road  and  the  public  lawns  on  the  other  wert 
quite  good  for  England.  She  was  not  softened  by  Marion's 
proud  mutter:  "It's  jolly  in  spring,  seeing  the  blue  sea  through 
the  gap  in  the  may  hedge.  And  on  the  other  side  of  the  hedge 
there's  one  of  those  old  grass  roads.  They  used  to  say  they 
were  Roman,  but  they're  far  older.  Older  than  Stonehenge. 
This  used  to  run  all  the  way  to  Canfleet — that's  where  Kerith 
Island  touches  the  mainland — but  it's  all  gone  but  this  part 
here.  .  .  ."  She  disliked  the  road  when  it  took  a  disclaiming 
twist  and  left  the  houses  out  of  sight  and  travelled  between 
low  oaks,  because  it  was  the  road  home,  and  she  would  never 
have  chosen  a  home  in  this  strange  place,  whose  lack  of  mean- 
ing for  herself  could  be  measured  by  its  plentitude  of  meaning 
for  this  woman  who  was  so  unlike  her. 

Certainly  she  would  never  have  chosen  this  home.  Very 
thick,  trim  hedges  gave  the  long  garden  the  look  of  a  pound; 
the  standard  rose-trees  which  grew  in  round  flower-beds  on  the 
lawn,  which  was  of  that  excessively  deep  green  that  grass  takes 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  265 

on  in  gardens  with  a  north  aspect,  had  the  air  of  being  de- 
tained in  custody,  and  the  borders  on  each  side  of  the  broad 
gravel  path  showed  that  extreme  neatness  which  is  found  in 
places  of  detention.  The  red  brick  farmhouse  at  its  end  was 
very  small,  and  its  windows  such  mere  square  peep-holes 
among  a  strong  growth  of  ivy  that  one  conceived  its  inhabi- 
tants as  being  able  to  see  the  light  only  by  pressing  their  faces 
close  against  the  glass. 

"Oh,  I  know  it's  ugly !"  muttered  Marion,  holding  back  the 
gate  for  her.  "I  should  have  had  it  pulled  down  when  I  built 
on  the  new  rooms.  But  it's  been  here  two  hundred  years,  and 
there  are  some  of  the  beams  of  the  house  that  was  here  before 
in  it,  and  we  have  lived  here  all  the  time,  so  it  was  too  great 
a  responsibility  to  destroy  it."  She  looked  sideways  at  the 
girl's  clouded  face,  and  explained  desperately,  "I  couldn't, 
you  know.  When  people  don't  understand  why  you  did  things, 
and  say  you  did  them  because  you  had  no  respect  for  good 
old  established  decencies  of  life,  you  become  most  carefully 
conservative !" 

But  confidence  could  not  be  maintained  for  long  at  this 
awkward  pitch,  and  she  went  on-  to  the  front  door.  "You'll 
like  our  roses,"  she  said  hopefully,  as  they  waited  for  it  to 
open;  "they  grow  wonderfully  on  this  Essex  clay."  But  al- 
though there  was  evident  in  that  an  amiable  desire  to  please, 
Ellen  was  again  alienated  by  the  cool  smile  with  which  Marion 
greeted  the  maid  who  opened  the  door,  the  uninterested  "Good 
morning,  Mabel."  The -girl  looked  so  pleased  to  see  them. 
Marion  returned,  too,  to  this  curious  idea  of  hers  about  not 
being  able  to  destroy  ugly  things  just  because  they  are  old, 
although  of  course  it  is  one's  plain  duty  to  replace  ugly  things 
with  beautiful  whatever  the  circumstances,  when  they  stepped 
in,  through  no  intervening  hall  or  passage,  to  a  little  dark 
room  furnished,  as  farm  parlours  are,  with  a  grandfather 
clock,  an  oak  settle,  a  dresser,  a  gate-leg  table  with  a  patch- 
work cloth  over  it,  and  samplers  hanging  on  wallpaper  of  a 
trivial  rosebud  pattern.  "I  hate  this  English  farmhouse  stuff," 
she  said.  "Heavy  and  uninventive.  The  Yaverlands  have 
been  well-to-do  for  at  least  four  hundred  years,  and  they 
never  took  the  trouble  to  have  a  single  thing  made  with  any 


266  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

particular  appositeness  to  themselves.  But  I  have  left  this 
room  as  it  was.  To  have  it  disturbed  would  have  been  like 
turning  my  grandmother's  ghost  out  of  doors,  and  I  troubled 
her  enough  in  her  lifetime.  But  look!  It's  all  right  in  the 
rooms  I've  built  on."  She  held  back  a  door,  and  they  looked 
into  a  shining  room  lined  with  white  panels  and  lit  by  wide 
windows  that  admitted  much  of  the  vast  sky.  "But  I'll  take 
you  to  your  room.  It's  in  the  old  part  of  the  house.  But  I 
think  you  will  like  it.  It's  a  room  I'm  fond  of.  .  .  ." 

They  climbed  a  steep  dark  staircase,  and  Marion  opened  a 
low  thatched  door  in  which  the  light,  obscured  by  drawn 
chintz  curtains,  fell  on  cream  walls  and  a  bed,  with  its  high 
headpiece  made  of  fine  wood  painted  green,  and  a  great  press 
made  of  the  same.  "There's  a  step  down,"  she  said,  "and  the 
floor  rakes,  but  I'm  fond  of  the  room.  I  slept  here  when 
I  was  a  girl;  but  all  the  things  are  new — I  got  them  down 
from  London ;  and  I  had  the  walls  done.  So  you  have  a  fresh 
start."  She  went  to  the  chintz  curtains  and  pulled  them  back, 
disclosing  a  very  large  window  that  came  down  to  within  two 
feet  of  the  floor  and  looked  on  to  a  farmyard.  "It's  a  good- 
sized  window,  isn't  it?"  she  said.  "There's  a  story  about  that. 
They  say  my  great-grandfather,  William  Yaverland,  was  as 
mean  as  he  was  jealous,  and  as  jealous  as  he  was  mean,  and 
in  middle  life  he  was  crippled  by  a  kick  from  a  horse  and  bed- 
ridden ever  after.  He'd  a  very  pretty  young  wife,  and  a 
handsome  overseer  who  was  a  very  capable  chap  and  worth 
hundreds  a  year  to  the  farm,  and  it  struck  him  that  in  his  new 
state  he'd  probably  not  be  able  to  keep  the  one  without  losing 
the  other.  So  he  had  this  window  knocked  out  so  that  he  could 
lie  in  his  bed  and  keep  his  eye  on  the  dairy  where  his  wife 
worked  and  see  who  went  in  and  came  out.  Well,  now  it'll 
let  the  morning  sun  in  on  you." 

She  sat  down  on  the  windowseat,  and  with  a  sense  of  fulfil- 
ment watched  the  girl  move  delightedly  among  the  new  things, 
touching  the  little  white  wreaths  on  the  embroidered  bedspread 
and  tracing  the  delicate  grain  with  her  forefinger,  and  coming 
to  a  stop  before  the  mirror  and  looking  at  her  face  with  a 
solemn  respectful  vanity  because  it  had  pleased  her  beloved. 
Marion  found  this  very  right  and  fitting,  because  to  her,  in 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  267 

• 

spite  of  the  story  of  this  window,  this  room  had  always  been 
sacred  to  the  spirit  of  young  love.  She  turned  her  head  and 
looked  out  into  the  farmyard.  When  the  land  had  been  let 
out  to  neighbouring  cultivators  the  byres  and  outhouses  had 
all  been  pulled  down,  and  the  yard  was  now  only  a  quadrangle 
of  grey  trodden  earth,  having  on  its  further  side  a  wall-less 
shed  in  which  there  were  stacked  all  the  billets  that  had  been 
cut  from  the  spinneys  on  the  land  they  retained,  bound  neatly 
with  the  black  branches  fluting  together  and  a  fuzz  of  purple 
twigs  at  each  end. 

But  she  could  remember  another  day,  more  than  thirty  years 
before,  when  it  was  brown  and  oozy  underfoot  and  there  was 
nothing  neat  about  it  at  all,  and  the  mellow  cry  of  well-fed 
cattle  came  from  the  dark  doors  of  tumble-down  sheds,  and 
she  was  standing  in  the  sunshine  with  two  of  the  Berkshire 
piglets  in  her  arms.  She  had  brought  them  out  of  the  stye 
to  have  a  better  sight  of  their  pretty  twitching  noses  and  their 
silken  bristles  and  their  playfulness,  which  was  unclouded,  as 
it  is  in  the  puppy  by  a  genuine  fear  of  life,  or  in  the  kitten 
by  a  minxish  affectation  of  the  same;  and  Goodtart,  the  cat- 
tleman, had  drawn  near  with  a  "Wunnerful,  ain't  they,  Miss 
Marion? — and  them  not  born  at  four  o'clock  this  morning," 
when  she  heard  the  clear  voice  that  was  sweet  and  yet  hard, 
like  silver  ringing  on  steel,  calling  to  the  dogs  out  in  the  road- 
way, "Lesbia  !  Catullus  !  Come  out  of  it !"  The  greyhounds 
had,  as  usual,  got  in  among  the  sheep  on  the  glebe  land  oppo- 
site. She  ran  forward  into  the  darkness  of  the  stye  and  put 
down  the  two  piglets  among  the  sucking  tide  of  life  that 
washed  the  flanks  of  the  great  old  sow,  but  she  could  not  stay 
there  for  ever.  Goodtart,  who,  being  in  the  sunlight,  could 
not  see  that  she  was  looking  out  at  him  from  the  shadow, 
turned  an  undisguised  face  towards  the  doorway,  and  she 
perceived  that  the  dung-brown  eyes  under  his  forelocks  were 
almost  alive  and  that  his  long  upper  lip  was  twitching  from 
side  to  side. 

She  walked  stiffly  out,  hearing  the  voice  still  calling  "Catul- 
lus! Lesbia!"  and  went  in  to  the  house.  But  Peggy  was 
baking  in  the  kitchen  and  Grandmother  was  reading  the  Prittle- 
bay  Gazette  in  the  parlour,  and  she  went  upstairs  and  threw 


268  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

« 

herself  on  the  bed.  She  thought  of  nothing.  Her  heart  seemed 
by  its  slogging  beat  to  be  urging  some  argument  upon  her. 
Presently  she  realised  that  he  was  no  longer  calling  to  his 
dogs,  and  she  turned  on  her  pillow  and  looked  out  of  the  big 
window  into  the  farmyard.  He  was  there.  Cousin  Tom  Stal- 
lybrass,  who  had  been  managing  the  farm  ever  since  Grand- 
father's death,  had  come  out  and  was  talking  to  him,  and  from 
his  gestures  was  evidently  telling  him  of  the  recent  collapse 
of  the  dairy  wall,  but  he  was  not  interested,  for  he  did  not 
point  his  stick  at  it,  and  in  him  almost  every  mental  move- 
ment was  immediately  followed  by  some  physical  sign.  There 
was  something  else  he  wanted.  When  the  greyhounds  licked 
up  at  him  he  thrust  them  away  with  the  petulance  of  a  baulked 
man,  and  whenever  Tom  turned  his  head  away  to  point  at  the 
dairy  he  cast  quick  glances  at  the  farm  door,  at  the  gate  into 
the  road,  at  the  other  gate  into  the  fields.  She  could  see  his 
face,  and  it  was  dark,  and  the  lips  drawn  down  at  the  corners. 
What  could  it  be  that  he  wanted? 

She  rose  from  her  bed  and  went  to  the  window,  and  knelt 
down  by  it,  pressing  her  face  and  the  white  bib  of  her  apron 
close  to  the  glass.  Instantly  he  saw  her,  and  his  face  was  filled 
with  worship  and  happiness  as  with  light.  At  last  she  knew 
that  she  was  loved,  that  the  things  he  said  when  they  met  on 
the  marshes  were  not  said  as  they  had  been  when  she  was  a 
child,  and  that  there  had  lately  been  solemnity  throned  in  his 
eyes'  levity.  He  made  no  motion  for  her  to  come  down,  nor 
when  Tom  turned  his  head  again  did  he  throw  any  furtive 
look  at  the  window.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  have  seen  her ; 
and  soon  he  went  away  with  bent  head  followed  by  his  for- 
gotten dogs. 

Well,  now  this  girl  should  sleep  here,  and  the  place  should 
be  revisited  by  a  love  as  sacred  as  that,  and  one  which  would 
not  commit  sacrilege  upon  itself.  She  gave  a  soft  laugh,  and 
in  a  haze  of  satisfaction  that  prevented  her  seeing  that  Ellen 
was  beginning  to  tell  her  how  much  she  liked  the  furniture 
she  went  out  and  passed  to  her  own  room.  For  a  moment 
she  stood  at  the  side  windows,  looking  out  on  the  show  of 
sky  and  sea  and  green  islands  that  lay  sealed  in  the  embank- 
ments from  the  grey  flood  which  was  now  running  across  the 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  269 

silver  plain  and  trying  at  them  treacherously  through  the 
creeks  that  lay  loverlike  beside  them.  Then  she  turned  ap- 
provingly to  the  litter  which  betokened  that  this  was  a  bed- 
room visited  by  insomnia  more  often  than  by  sleep:  the  half- 
dozen  boxes  of  different  sorts  of  cigarettes,  the  plate  of  apples 
and  figs,  the  pile  of  books,  the  portfolio  of  prints.  It  had 
been  dreadful,  that  night  at  the  hotel,  with  nothing  to  read. 
She  was  very  glad  to  come  home. 

It  would  not  have  seemed  credible  to  Ellen  that  anyone 
should  feel  like  this  about  this  house.  The  things  in  her  room 
were  very  pretty,  but  it  was  spoiled  for  her  by  that  large 
window,  not  because  she  was  afraid  that  anyone  would  look 
in,  but  because  Marion  had  told  her  that  someone  had  once 
looked  out.  Since  that  person  had  been  kin  to  this  woman 
who  was  dark  with  unspent  energy,  she  figured  him  as  being 
not  quite  extinguishable  by  death  and  therefore  still  a  tenant 
of  the  apartment.  The  jealousy  of  one  of  his  stock  would 
probably  have  more  dynamic  power  than  her  most  exalted 
passions,  so  she  would  not  be  able  to  evict  him.  She  thought 
these  things  quite  passionately  and  desperately  while  at  the 
same  time  she  was  placidly  brushing  her  hair  and  thinking  how 
nice  everything  was  here.  Her  mind  continued  to  perform 
this  duet  of  emotions  when  they  went  downstairs  and  had 
lunch.  It  was  very  pretty,  this  white  room  with  the  few  etch- 
ings set  sparsely  on  the  gleaming  panels,  each  with  a  fair  field 
of  space  for  its  black-and-white  assertion;  the  deep,  bright 
blue  carpet,  soft  as  sleep,  on  the  mirror-shining  parquet;  the 
long  low  bookcases  with  their  glass  doors;  the  few  perfect 
flowers,  with  their  reflection  floating  on  polished  walnut  sur- 
faces as  if  drowned  in  sherry. 

The  meal  itself  pleased  as  being  in  some  sense  classical, 
though  she  could  not  see  why  that  adjective  should  occur  to 
her.  There  was  no  white  cloth,  and  the  bright  silver  and 
delicate  wineglasses,  and  the  little  dishes  of  coloured  glass 
piled  with  wet  green  olives,  stood  among  their  images  on  a 
gleaming  table.  The  food  was  all  either  very  hot  or  very  cold. 
She  had  two  helps  of  everything,  but  at  the  same  time  she 
was  being  appalled  by  the  bareness  of  the  room.  Her  intui- 
tion informed  that  if  a  violent  soul  became  terrified  lest  its 


270  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

own  violence  should  provoke  disorder  it  would  probably  make 
a  violent  effort  towards  order  by  throwing  nearly  everything 
out  of  the  window,  and  that  its  habitation  would  look  very 
much  like  this.  She  knitted  her  brows  and  said  "Imphm"  to 
herself ;  and  her  doubts  were  confirmed  by  Marion's  vehe- 
ment exclamation,  "Oh,  when  will  Richard  come!  I  wish 
he  would  come  soon."  Her  perfect,  her  so  rightly  old  mother 
would  have  said,  "It'll  be  nice  for  you,  dear,  when  Richard 
comes,"  and  would  not  have  clouded  her  dreams  of  his  coming 
with  the  threat  of  passionate  competition  for  his  notice. 

She  said  stiffly,  looking  down  on  her  plate,  "We're  awful 
reactionary,  letting  our  whole  lives  revolve  round  a  man." 

"Reactionary?"  repeated  Marion.  It  had  always  been  El- 
len's complaint  that  grown-up  people  took  what  the  young  say 
contemptuously,  but  to  have  her  remarks  treated  with  quite 
such  earnest  consideration  filled  her  for  some  reason  with  un- 
easiness. "I  don't  think  so.  If  I  had  a  daughter  who  was  as 
wonderful  as  Richard  I  would  let  my  life  revolve  round  her. 
But  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  I'm  reactionary.  Because  I  don't 
really  believe  that  any  woman  could  be  as  wonderful  as  Rich- 
ard; do  you?" 

Ellen  had  always  suspected  that  this  woman  was  not  quite 
sound  on  the  Feminist  question.  "Maybe  not  as  wonderful 
as  Richard  is,"  she  said  stoutly,  "but  as  wonderful  as  any 
other  man." 

"Do  you  really  think  so?"  asked  Marion.  "Women  are 
such  dependent  things.  They're  dependent  on  their  weak 
frames  and  their  personal  relationships.  Illness  can  make  a 
woman's  sun  go  out  so  easily.  And  then,  since  personal  re- 
lationships are  the  most  imperfect  things  in  the  world,  she  is 
so  liable 'to  be  unhappy.  These  are  handicaps  most  women 
don't  get  over.  And  then,  since  men  don't  love  us  nearly  as 
much  as  we  love  them,  that  leaves  them  much  more  spare 
vitality  to  be  wonderful  with." 

Ellen  sat  in  a  polite  silence,  not  wishing  to  make  this  woman 
who  had  failed  in  love  feel  small  by  telling  her  that  she  herself 
was  loved  by  Richard  just  as  much  as  she  loved  him. 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  know.  It's  annoying  the  way  that 
one  comes  to  the  end  of  life  knowing  less  than  one  did  at  the 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  271 

beginning."  She  stood  up  petulantly.  "Let's  go  upstairs." 
Ellen  followed  Marion  up  to  the  big  sitting-room  with  a 
sense  that,  though  she  had  not  seen  it,  she  would  not  like  it. 
She  was  as  disquieted  by  hearing  a  middle-aged  woman  speak 
about  life  with  this  agnostic  despair  as  a  child  might  if  it  was 
out  for  a  walk  with  its  nurse  and  discovered  this  being  whom 
it  had  regarded  as  all-knowing  and  all-powerful  was  in  tears 
because  she  had  lost  the  way.  She  had  always  hoped  that 
the  old  really  did  know  best ;  that  one  learned  the  meaning  of 
life  as  one  lived  it. 

So  she  was  shaken  and  distressed  by  the  fine  face,  which 
looked  discontented  with  thinking  as  another  face  might  look 
flushed  with  drinking,  and  by  the  powerful  yet  inert  body 
which  lay  in  the  great  armchair  limply  but  uneasily,  as  if  she 
desired  to  ask  a  question  but  was  restrained  by  a  belief  that 
nobody  could  answer,  but  for  lack  of  that  answer  was  unable 
to  commit  herself  to  any  action.  Her  expression  was  not,  as 
Ellen  had  at  first  thought,  blank.  Nor  was  it  trivial,  though 
she  still  sometimes  raised  those  hands  with  the  flashing  nails 
and  smoothed  her  eyebrows.  It  showed  plainly  enough  that 
doubt  was  wandering  from  chamber  to  chamber  of  her  being, 
blowing  out  such  candles  of  certitude  as  the  hopefulness  nat- 
ural to  all  human  beings  had  enabled  her  to  light.  The  fact 
of  Richard  streamed  in  like  sunshine  through  the  windows  of 
her  soul,  and  when  she  spoke  of  him  she  was  evidently  utterly 
happy;  but  there  were  some  parts  of  her  life  with  which  he 
had  nothing  to  do,  as  there  are  north  rooms  in  a  house  which 
the  sun  cannot  touch,  and  these  the  breath  of  doubt  left  to 
utter  darkness.  "You're  imagining  all  this,  Ellen,"  she  said 
to  herself;  "how  can  you  possibly  know  all  this  about  her?" 
"It's  true,"  herself  answered.  "Well,  it's  not  true  in  the  sense 
that  it's  true  that  she's  dark  and  her  name's  Mrs.  Yaverland, 
is  it?"  "Ellen,  have  you  nothing  of  an  artist  in  you?"  herself 
enquired  with  pain.  "You  might  be  a  business  body,  or  one 
of  the  mistresses  in  John  Square,  the  crude  way  you're  talking. 
It's  not  a  fact  that  ye  can  look  up  in  a  directory.  But  it's 
perfectly  true  that  this  woman's  queer  and  warselled  and  un- 
happy. But  you're  losing  your  head  terribly  on  your  first 
encounter  with  tragedy,  and  you  fancying  yourself  a  cut  above 


272  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  ordinary  because  you  enjoyed  a  good  read  of  'King  Lear* 
and  'Macbeth/  "  "Well,  I  never  said  I  wanted  to  take  rooms 
with  Lady  Macbeth,"  she  objected. 

But  Marion  was  asking  her  now  if  she  liked  this  room,  or 
if  she  found  it,  as  many  people  did,  more  like  a  lighthouse  than 
a  home,  and  because  she  spoke  with  passionate  concern  lest 
the  girl  should  not  be  at  ease  in  the  place  where  she  was  to 
spend  her  future  life,  Ellen  immediately  answered  with  a  kind 
of  secondary  sincerity  that  she  liked  it  very  much.  Yet  the 
room  was  convincing  her  of  something  she  was  too  young  and 
too  poor  ever  to  have  proved  before,  and  that  was  the  possi- 
bility of  excess.  All  her  delights  had  been  so  sparse  and  in 
character  so  simple  that  no  cloying  of  after-taste  had  ever 
changed  them  from  being  finally  and  unquestionably  delights; 
they  stood  like  a  knot  of  poplars  on  the  edge  of  a  large  garden 
whose  close  resemblance  to  golden  flame  could  be  enjoyed 
quite  without  dubiety  because  there  was  no  fear  that  the  lawns 
or  flowers  would  be  robbed  of  sunlight  by  their  spear-thin 
shadows.  She  did  not  know  that  one  could  eat  too  many  ices, 
for  she  had  never  been  able  to  afford  more  than  one  at  a  time ; 
in  rainy  Edinburgh  the  stories  of  men  whose  minds  became 
sick  at  dwelling  under  immutably  blue  skies  had  seemed  one 
of  the  belittling  lies  about  fair  things  that  grown-up  people 
like  to  tell ;  and  since  she  had  had  hardly  anybody  to  talk  to  till 
Richard  came,  and  had  never  had  enough  books  to  read,  it  had 
seemed  quite  impossible  that  one  could  feel  or  think  past  the 
point  where  feeling  and  thinking  were  happy  embarkations  of 
the  soul  on  bracing  seas. 

Yet  here  in  this  room  the  inconceivable  had  happened,  and 
she  recognised  that  there  was  present  an  excess  of  beauty  and 
an  excess  of  being.  For  indeed  the  room  was  too  like  a  light- 
house in  the  way  that  all  who  sat  within  were  forced  to  look 
out  on  the  windy  firmament  and  see  the  earth  spread  far  be- 
low as  the  pavement  of  the  clouds  on  which  their  shadows  trod 
like  gliding  feet.  The  walls  it  turned  to  the  south  and  west 
were  almost  entirely  composed  of  windows  of  extravagant 
dimensions,  beginning  below  the  cornice  and  stopping  only  a 
couple  of  feet  above  the  floor,  so  that  as  the  two  women  sat 
by  the  wood  fire  they  looked  over  their  shoulders  at  the  leaning 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  273 

ships  in  the  harbour  and  the  tide  that  hurried  to  it  over  the 
silver  plain,  and  the  little  house  with  its  orchard  at  the  island's 
end,  not  a  stone's  throw  from  the  boats  and  nets,  so  marine  in 
its  situation  that  one  could  conceive  it  farmed  by  a  merman 
and  see  him  working  his  scaly  tail  up  the  straight  path  that 
drove  through  the  garden  to  the  door,  a  sheep-fish  wriggling 
at  his  heels.  They  saw  too  the  pastures  of  the  rest  of  the  isl- 
and, of  a  rougher  brine-qualified  green,  and  the  one  black  tree 
that  stood  against  them  like  the  ace  of  clubs;  and  past  them 
lay  the  channel  where  the  white  sail  of  a  frigate  curtseyed  to 
the  rust-red  rag  of  a  barge,  and  the  round  dark  hills  beyond 
mothering  a  storm.  And  if  they  looked  towards  the  window 
in  the  right-hand  wall  they  saw  a  line  of  elms  going  down 
the  escarpment  to  the  marshes  like  women  going  down  to  a 
well ;  and  between  their  slim  purple  statures,  the  green  floor  of 
Kerith  Island  stretched  illimitably  to  the  west.  And  every- 
where there  were  colours,  clear  though  unsunned,  as  if  the  lens 
of  the  air  had  been  washed  very  clean  by  the  sea  winds. 

She  had  never  before  been  in  a  room  so  freely  ventilated  by 
beauty,  and  yet  she  knew  that  she  would  find  living  on  the 
ledge  of  this  view  quite  intolerable.  All  that  existed  within 
the  room  was  dwarfed  by  the  immensity  that  the  glass  let  in 
upon  it,  like  the  private  life  of  a  man  dominated  by  some  great 
general  idea.  Because  the  clouds  were  grey  with  a  load  of  rain 
and  were  running  swiftly  before  an  east  wind  the  flesh  be- 
came inattentive  to  the  heat  of  the  fire  and  participated  in  the 
chill  of  the  open  air,  and  though  it  is  well  to  walk  abroad  on 
cold  days,  one  wants  to  be  warm  when  one  sits  by  the  hearth. 
Behind  the  glass  doors  of  the  bookcases  were  many  books,  with 
bindings  that  showed  they  were  the  inaccessible  sort,  modern 
and  right,  that  one  cannot  get  out  of  the  public  library.  But 
one  would  never  be  able  to  sit  and  read  with  concentration 
here,  where  if  the  eye  strayed  ever  so  little  over  the  margin 
it  saw  the  river  and  the  plain  changing  aspects  at  each  change 
of  the  wind  like  passionate  people  hearing  news ;  yet  there  are 
discoveries  made  by  humanity  that  are  as  fair  as  the  passage 
of  a  cloud-riving  spot  of  sunlight  from  sea  to  marsh  and  from 
marsh  to  creek,  and  more  necessary  for  the  human  being  to 
observe.  But  when  Ellen  tried  to  rescue  her  mind  from  mer- 


274  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

sion  into  this  excess  of  beauty  and  to  fix  it  on  the  small, 
warmly-coloured  pattern  of  the  domestic  life  within  the  room 
it  was  lost  as  completely  and  disastrously,  so  far  as  following 
its  own  ends  went,  in  the  not  less  excessive  view  of  the  spir- 
itual world  presented  by  this  woman's  face. 

Marion  should  not  have  lived  in  a  room  so  full  of  light.  The 
tragic  point  of  her  was  pressed  home  too  well.  The  spectator 
must  forget  his  own  fate  in  looking  on  this  fine  ravaged  land- 
scape and  wondering  what  extremities  of  weather  had  made 
it  what  it  was,  and  how  such  a  noble  atmosphere  should  hang 
over  conformations  not  of  the  simple  kind  associated  with  no- 
bility but  subtle  as  villainy.  Ellen  knew  that  she  would  never 
have  a  life  of  her  own  here.  She  would  all  the  time  be  trying 
to  think  out  what  had  happened  to  Marion.  She  would  never 
be  able  to  look  at  events  for  what  they  were  in  themselves  and 
in  relation  to  the  destiny  she  was  going  to  make  with  Richard ; 
but  would  wonder,  if  they  were  delights,  whether  their  de- 
lightfulness  would  not  seem  heartless  as  laughter  in  a  house  of 
mourning  to  this  woman  whose  delight  lay  in  a  grave,  and  if 
they  were  sorrows,  whether  coming  to  a  woman  who  had  wept 
so  much  they  would  not  extort  some  last  secretion  more  agon- 
ising than  a  common  tear. 

"But  she  is  old !  She  will  die !"  she  thought,  aghast  at  this 
tragic  tyranny.  "Mother  died !"  she  assured  herself  hopefully. 
Instantly  she  was  appalled  at  her  thoughts.  She  was  ashamed 
at  having  had  such  an  ill  wish  about  this  middle-aged  woman 
who  was  sitting  there  rather  lumpishly  in  an  armchair  and 
evidently,  from  her  vague  wandering  glance  and  the  twist  of 
her  eyebrows  and  her  mouth,  trying  to  think  of  something  nice 
to  say  and  regretting  that  she  failed.  And  as  she  looked  at  her 
and  her  repentance  changed  into  a  marvel  that  this  stunned  and 
stubborn  woman  should  be  the  wonderful  Marion  of  whom 
Richard  spoke,  she  realised  that  her  death  was  the  event  that 
she  had  to  fear  above  all  others  possible  in  life.  For  she  did 
not  know  what  would  happen  to  Richard  if  his  mother  died. 
He  cared  for  her  inordinately.  When  he  spoke  of  her,  black 
fire  would  burn  in  his  eyes,  and  after  a  few  sentences  he  would 
fall  silent  and  look  away  from  Ellen  and,  she  was  sure,  forget 
her,  for  he  would  then  stretch  out  for  her  hand  and  give  it  an 


CHAPTER  ii  THE  JUDGE  275 

insincere  and  mechanical  patting  which,  though  at  any  other 
time  his  touch  refreshed  her  veins,  she  found  irritating.  If 
his  mother  died  his  grief  would  of  course  be  as  inordinate. 
He  would  turn  on  her  a  face  hostile  with  preoccupation  and 
would  go  out  to  wander  on  some  stupendous  mountain  system 
of  vast  and  complicated  sorrows.  Not  even  death  would  stop 
this  woman's  habit  of  excessive  living. 

Ellen  shivered,  and  rose  and  looked  at  the  bookcases.  The 
violent  order  characteristic  of  the  household  had  polished  the 
glass  doors  so  brightly  that  between  her  and  the  books  there 
floated  those  intrusive  clouds,  the  aggressive  marshes.  She 
went  and  stood  by  the  fire. 

"You  look  tired,"  said  Marion  timidly. 

"Yes,  I'm  tired.  Do  you  know,  I'm  feeling  quite  fanciful. 
.  .  .  It's  just  tiredness." 

"You'd  better  go  and  lie  down." 

"Oh  no,  I  would  just  lie  and  think.     I  feel  awful  restless." 

"Then  let's  go  for  a  walk."  She  shot  a  furtive,  comprehend- 
ing look  at  the  girl.  "This  really  isn't  such  a  bad  place,"  she 
told  her  wistfully. 

They  separated  to  dress,  smiling  at  each  other  kindly  and 
uneasily.  Ellen  went  into  her  room,  and  stood  about,  thinking 
how  romantic  it  all  was,  but  wondering  what  was  the  termina- 
tion of  a  romance  where  curtains  do  not  fall  at  the  act's  end, 
until  her  eyes  fell  upon  her  reflection  in  the  mirror.  She  was 
standing  with  her  head  bowed  and  her  cheek  resting  on  her 
clasped  hands,  and  she  wished  somebody  would  snapshot  her 
like  that,  for  though  of  course  it  would  be  affected  to  take 
such  a  pose  in  front  of  a  camera,  she  would  like  Richard  to 
have  a  photograph  of  her  looking  like  that.  Suddenly  she  re- 
membered how  Richard  delighted  in  her,  and  what  pretty 
things  he  found  to  say  about  her  without  putting  himself  out, 
and  how  he  was  always  sorry  to  leave  her  and  sometimes  came 
back  for  another  kiss,  and  she  felt  enormously  proud  of  being 
the  dispenser  of  such  satisfactions,  and  began  to  put  on  her  hat 
and  coat  with  peacocking  gestures  and  recklessly  light-minded 
glances  in  the  mirror.  The  reflection  of  a  crumpled  face-towel 
thrown  into  a  wisp  over  the  rail  of  the  washstand  reminded 
her  in  some  way  of  the  white-faced  wee  thing  Mr.  Philip  had 


276  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

been  during  the  last  few  days  when  she  had  gone  back  to  the 
office,  and  this  added  to  her  exhilaration,  though  she  did  not 
see  why.  She  was  suddenly  relieved  from  her  fear  of  being 
dispossessed  of  her  own  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

THEY  went  out  of  the  house  by  the  French  window  of  the 
dining-room,  and  crossed  a  garden  whose  swept  lawns 
and  grass  walks  and  flower-beds,  in  which  the  golden  aconite, 
January's  sole  floral  dividend,  was  laid  out  to  the  thriftiest  ad- 
vantage. It  showed,  Ellen  thought,  the  same  wild  orderliness 
as  the  house.  Through  a  wicket-gate  they  passed  into  an  or- 
chard, and  followed  a  downward  path  among  the  whitened 
trunks.  "This  is  all  the  land  I've  kept  of  the  old  farm,"  said 
Marion.  "The  rest  is  let.  I  let  it  years  ago.  Richard  never 
wanted  to  be  a  farmer.  It  was  always  science  he  was  keen  on, 
from  the  time  he  was  a  boy  of  ten." 

"Then  why  did  he  go  to  sea?"  asked  Ellen.  The  path  they 
were  following  was  so  narrow  that  they  had  to  walk  singly, 
so  when  Marion  did  not  answer  Ellen's  question  she  thought 
it  must  be  because  she  had  not  spoken  loudly  enough.  She  re- 
peated it.  "Why  did  he  go  to  sea,  if  he  was  so  keen  on 
science  ?" 

But  Marion  still  took  some  seconds  to  reply,  and  then  her 
words  were  patently  edited  by  reserve.  "Oh,  he  was  sixteen 
.  .  .  boys  need  adventure.  .  .  ." 

"I  do  not  believe  he  needed  adventure  so  much,"  disputed 
Ellen,  moved  half  by  interest  in  the  point  she  was  discussing 
and  half  by  the  desire  to  assert  that  she  had  as  much  right  as 
anybody  to  talk  about  Richard,  and  maybe  knew  as  much  about 
him  as  anybody.  "It's  not  possible  that  Richard  could  ever 
have  been  at  his  ease  in  a  life  of  action.  He'd  be  miserable  if 
he  wasn't  always  the  leader,  and  he  couldn't  always  be  the 
leader  when  he  was  sixteen.  And  then  he'd  not  be  happy  when 
he  was  the  leader  because  he  thinks  so  poorly  of  most  people 
that  he  doesn't  feel  there's  any  point  in  leading  them  any- 
where, so  there  couldn't  have  been  any  pleasure  in  it  even  when 
he  was  older.  Isn't  that  so?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  muttered  Marion  uncommunicatively. 

"Then  why  did  he  go  to  sea?"  persisted  Ellen. 

277 


278  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"I  don't  know,  I  don't  know,"  murmured  the  other,  but 
her  face,  as  she  paused  at  a  gate  in  the  orchard  hedge,  was 
amused  and  meditative.  She  knew  quite  well. 

It  was  one  of  those  days  of  east  wind  that  are  clear  and 
bright  and  yet  at  enmity  with  the  appearances  they  so  definitely 
disclose.  The  sea,  which  had  now  covered  all  the  mud  and 
had  run  into  the  harbour  and  was  lifting  the  ships  on  to  an 
even  keel,  was  the  colour  of  a  sharpened  pencil-point.  The 
green  of  the  grass  was  acid.  Under  the  grey  glare  of  the  sky 
the  soft  purples  of  the  bare  trees  and  hedges  became  a  rough 
darkness  without  quality.  Yet  as  they  walked  down  the  field- 
path  to  the  floor  of  the  marshes  Ellen  was  well  content.  This, 
like  the  Pentlands,  was  far  more  than  a  place.  It  was  a  men- 
tal state,  a  revisitable  peace,  a  country  on  whose  soil  the  people 
and  passions  of  imagination  lived  more  intensely  than  on  other 
earth.  There  was  a  wind  blowing  that  was  as  salt  as  sea- 
winds  are,  yet  travelled  more  mildly  over  the  estuary  land  than 
it  would  have  over  the  waves,  like  some  old  captain  who  from 
old  age  had  come  to  live  ashore  and  keeps  the  roll  and  bluster 
of  his  calling  though  he  does  no  more  than  tell  children  tales 
of  storms. 

And  through  this  clear,  unstagnant  yet  unturbulent  air  there 
rose  the  wild  yet  gentle  cry  of  a  multitude  of  birds.  It  was 
not  the  coarse  brave  cry  of  the  gull  that  can  breast  tempests 
and  dive  deep  for  unfastidious  food.  It  was  not  the  austere 
cry  of  the  curlew  who  dwells  on  moors  when  they  are  unvisit- 
able  by  men.  This  was  the  voice  of  some  bird  appropriate  to 
the  place.  It  was  unhurried.  Whatever  lived  on  the  plain  saw 
when  the  sun  rose  on  its  edge  shadows  as  long  as  living  things 
ever  see  them,  and  watched  them  shrink  till  noon,  and  lengthen 
out  again  till  sundown ;  and  time  must  have  seemed  the  slower 
for  being  so  visible.  It  had  the  sound  of  water  in  it.  What- 
ever lived  here  spent  half  its  life  expecting  the  running  of 
waveless  but  briny  tides  up  the  creeks,  through  mud-paved 
culverts  into  the  dykes  that  fed  the  wet  marshes  with  fresh 
wetness;  and  the  other  half  deploring  their  slow,  sluggish 
sucking  back  to  the  sea.  Sorrow  or  any  other  intemperance 
of  feeling  seemed  a  discourteous  disturbance  of  an  atmos- 
phere filled  with  this  resigned  harmony. 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  279 

Her  mind,  thus  liberated  from  its  own  burdens,  ran  here 
and  there  over  the  landscape,  inventing  a  romantic  situation 
for  each  pictorial  spot.  Under  the  black  tree  on  the  island 
she  said  good-bye  to  a  lover  whom  she  made  not  in  the  least 
like  Richard,  because  she  thought  it  probable  later  in  the  story 
he  would  meet  a  violent  death.  A  man  fled  over  the  marsh 
before  an  avenger  who,  when  the  quarry  tripped  on  the  dyke's 
edge,  buried  a  knife  between  his  shoulders;  and,  as  he  struck, 
a  woman  lit  the  lamp  in  the  window  of  the  island  farm,  to 
tell  the  murdered  man  that  it  was  safe  to  come.  Indeed,  that 
farm  was  a  red  rag  to  the  imagination.  Perhaps  a  sailor's 
widow  with  some  sorceress  blood  had  gone  to  live  there,  so 
that  the  ghost  of  her  drowned  husband  might  have  less  far  to 
travel  when  he  obeyed  her  nightly  evocations. 

"Who  lives  in  that  little  house  on  the  island?"  she  called 
out  to  Marion. 

"The  one  on  the  Saltings?  No  one.  It  has  been  empty 
for  forty  years.  But  when  I  was  a  child  George  Luck 
still  lived  there.  George  Luck,  the  last  great  wizard  in  Eng- 
land." 

"A  wizard  forty  years  ago !  Well,  I  suppose  parts  of  Eng- 
land are  very  backward.  You've  got  such  a  miserable  system 
of  education.  What  sort  of  magic  did  he  do?" 

"Oh,  he  gave  charms  to  cure  sick  cattle,  and  sailors'  wives 
used  to  come  to  him  for  news  of  their  absent  husbands,  and  he 
used  to  make  them  look  in  a  full  tub  of  water,  and  they  used 
to  see  little  pictures  of  what  the  men  were  doing  at  the  time." 
She  laughed  over  her  shoulder  at  Ellen.  "You  see,  other 
women  before  us  have  been  reactionary." 

"Reactionary?"  repeated  Ellen. 

"They  have  let  their  lives  revolve  round  men,"  said  Marion 
teasingly,  and  Ellen  returned  her  laughter.  They  were  both 
in  high  spirits  because  of  this  wind  that  was  salt  and  cold  and 
yet  not  savage.  Their  glowing  bodies  reminded  them  that  the 
prime  necessities  of  life  are  earth  and  air,  and  the  chance  to 
eat  well  as  they  had  eaten,  and  that  in  being  in  love  they  were 
the  victims  of  a  classic  predicament,  the  current  participators 
in  the  perpetual  imbroglio  with  spiritual  things  that  makes 
man  the  most  ridiculous  of  animals. 


280  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

They  were  walking  on  the  level  now,  on  a  path  beside  the 
railway-line,  again  in  the  great  green  platter  of  the  marshes. 
The  sea-wall,  which  ran  in  wide  crimps  a  field's  width  away 
on  the  other  side  of  the  line,  might  have  been  the  rim  of  the 
world  had  it  not  been  for  the  forest  of  masts  showing  above 
it.  The  clouds  declared  themselves  the  inhabitants  of  the  sky 
and  not  its  stuff  by  casting  separate  shadows,  and  the  space 
they  moved  in  seemed  a  reservoir  of  salt  light,  of  fluid  silence, 
under  which  it  was  good  to  live.  Yet  it  was  not  silence,  for 
there  came  perpetually  that  leisurely,  wet  cry, 

"What  are  those  birds  ?  They  make  a  lovely  sound,"  asked 
Ellen,  dancing. 

"Those  are  the  redshanks.  They're  wading-birds.  When 
Richard  comes  he  will  take  you  on  the  sea-wall  and  show  you 
the  redshanks  in  the  little  streams  among  the  mud.  They  are 
such  queer  streams.  Up  towards  Canfleet  there's  a  waterfall 
in  the  mud,  with  a  fall  of  several  feet.  It  looks  queer.  These 
marshes  are  queer.  And  they're  so  lonely.  Nobody  ever 
comes  here  now  except  the  men  to  see  to  the  cattle.  Even 
though  the  railway  runs  through,  they're  quite  lonely.  The 
trains  carry  clerks  and  shop-assistants  down  from  their  work 
in  London  to  their  houses  at  New  Roothing  and  Bestcliffe  and 
Prittlebay  at  night;  and  they  leave  in  the  morning  as  soon  as 
they've  had  breakfast.  On  Sundays  they're  too  tired  to  do 
anything  but  sit  on  the  cliff  and  listen  to  the  band  playing. 
During  the  week  the  children  are  all  at  school  or  too  young  to 
go  further  than  the  recreation  grounds.  There's  nothing  to 
bring  these  people  here,  and  they  never  come." 

She  again  struck  Ellen  as  terrifying.  She  spoke  of  the  gulf 
between  these  joyless  lives  and  the  beauty  through  which  they 
hurled  physically  night  and  morning,  to  the  conditions  which 
debarred  them  from  ever  visiting  it  spiritually,  with  exhilara- 
tion and  a  will  that  it  should  continue  to  exist  as  long  as  she 
could  help  it.  "But,  Ellen,  you  like  lonely  country  yourself," 
she  addressed  herself.  "You  liked  the  Pentlands  for  being  so 
lonely.  There's  no  difference  between  you  really.  .  .  ."  But 
indeed  there  was  a  difference.  She  had  liked  places  to  be 
destitute  of  any  trace  of  human  society  because  then  a  lovelier 
life  of  the  imagination  rushed  in  to  fill  the  vacuum.  Since  the 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  281 

engineer  had  erred  who  built  the  reservoirs  over  by  Carlops 
and  had  made  them  useless  for  that  purpose,  better  things 
than  water  came  along  the  stone  waterways;  meadowsweet 
choking  the  disused  channel  looked  like  a  faery  army  defiling 
down  to  the  plains,  and  locks  were  empty  and  dry  and  white, 
like  chambers  of  a  castle  keep,  or  squares  of  dark  green  waters 
from  which  at  any  moment  a  knight  would  rise  with  a  weed- 
hung  harp  in  his  arms  and  a  tale  of  a  hundred  years  in  faery- 
land. 

But  to  this  woman  the  liked  thing  about  loneliness  was 
simply  that  nobody  was  there.  Unpeopled  earth  seemed  to 
her  desirable  as  unadulterated  food ;  the  speech  of  man  among 
the  cries  of  the  redshanks  would  have  been  to  her  like  sand 
in  the  sugar.  They  came  presently  to  a  knot  of  trees,  round 
which  some  boys  wrangled  in  some  acting  game  in  which  a 
wigwam  built  between  the  shining  roots  that  one  of  the  trees 
lifted  high  out  of  earth  evidently  played  an  important  part. 
Ellen  would  have  liked  to  walk  slowly  as  they  passed  them,  so 
as  to  hear  as  much  as  possible  of  the  game,  for  it  looked  rather 
nice,  but  Marion  began  to  hurry,  and  broke  her  serene  silence 
in  an  affectation  of  earnest  and  excited  speech  so  that  she  need 
pay  as  little  response  to  the  boys'  doffing  of  their  caps.  There 
was  something  at  once  absurd  and  menacing  about  the  effect 
of  her  disinclination  to  return  these  children's  greetings;  to 
Ellen,  who  was  so  young  that  all  mature  persons  seemed  to 
have  a  vast  capital  of  self-possession,  it  was  like  seeing  some- 
one rich  expressing  serious  indignation  at  having  to  give  a 
beggar  a  penny. 

To  break  the  critical  current  of  her  thoughts  she  asked, 
"What's  that  church  up  there  ?" 

"It's  Roothing  Church.  It's  very  old.  It's  a  famous  land- 
mark." 

"But  what's  that  white  thing  beside  it?" 

"Oh,  that!"  said  Marion,  looking  seawards.  "That  is  the 
tomb  of  Richard's  father." 

"Indeed,"  breathed  Ellen  uncomfortably.  "He  must,"  she 
said,  determined  not  to  be  daunted  by  an  awkward  situation, 
"have  been  well  thought  of  in  the  neighbourhood." 

"Why?"  asked  Marion. 


282  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"It  has  the  look  of  something  raised  by  public  subscription. 
Was  it  not?" 

"No,  but  you  are  right.  It  has  the  look  of  something  raised 
by  public  subscription."  She  shot  an  appreciative  glance  at 
the  girl,  then  flung  back  her  head  and  looked  at  the  monument 
and  laughed.  Really,  Richard  had  chosen  very  well.  Always 
before  she  had  averted  her  eyes  from  that  white  public  tomb, 
because  she  knew  that  it  had  been  erected  not  so  much  to 
commemorate  the  dead  as  to  establish  the  wifehood  of  the 
widow  who  seized  this  opportunity  to  prison  him  in  marble  as 
she  had  never  been  able  to  prison  him  in  her  arms.  Now  that 
this  girl  had  expressed  its  architectural  quality  in  a  phrase, 
the  sight  of  it  would  cause  amusement  and  not,  as  it  had  done 
before,  anger  that  a  woman  of  such  quality  should  have  oc- 
cupied the  place  that  by  right  belonged  to  her.  That  secon- 
dary and  injurious  emotion  would  now  disappear,  and  far 
from  remembering  what  Ellen  had  said,  and  how  young  and 
pretty  and  funny  she  had  looked  when  she  said  it,  she  would 
pass  on  to  thoughts  of  the  time  when  she  was  young  like  that, 
and  how  in  those  days  she  had  lived  for  the  love  of  the  man 
who  was  under  that  marble ;  and  her  mind  would  dwell  on  the 
beauty  of  those  days  and  not  on  the  long,  the  interminable  hor- 
ror that  followed  them.  Even  now  she  knew  a  more  generous 
form  of  grief  than  hitherto,  and  was  sorrowing  because  he  who 
had  liked  nothing  better  than  to  walk  on  the  marshes  and  listen 
to  the  cry  of  the  marsh  birds  and  smile  into  the  blue  marsh  dis- 
tances, lay  deaf  in  darkness,  and  was  not  to  be  brought  back  to 
life  by  any  sacrifice.  Her  love  ran  up  the  hillside  and  stood  by 
his  tomb,  and  in  some  way  the  fair  thing  that  had  been  between 
them  was  recreated.  She  had  turned  smilingly  to  Ellen,  and 
found  the  girl  fixing  a  level  but  alarmed  stare.  She  was  facing 
the  situation  gallantly,  but  found  it  distasteful.  "What  is 
this?"  Marion  asked  herself  angrily,  with  the  resentment  of 
the  elderly  against  the  unnecessary  excitements  of  the  young. 
"What  is  this  fuss?  Ah,  she  thinks  it  is  dreadful  of  me  to 
look  at  Richard's  father's  tomb  and  laugh."  There  was  noth- 
ing she  could  say  to  explain  it,  though  for  a  moment  she  tried 
to  find  the  clarifying  word,  and  looked,  she  knew,  disagreeable 


i  ii AFTER  in  THE  JUDGE  283 

with  the  effort.  "Let's  come  on.  Round  this  bend  of  the 
bank  there's  a  bed  of  young  osiers.  How  fortunate  that  the 
sun  has  just  come  out!  They'll  look  fine.  .  .  .  You  know 
what  osiers  are  like  in  the  winter?  Or  don't  they  grow  up 
North?  .  .  ." 

They  came,  when  the  path  had  run  past  a  swelling  of  the 
bank,  to  the  neck  of  a  little  valley  that  cleft  the  escarpment 
and  ran  obliquely  inland  for  half  a  mile  or  so.  The  further 
slope  was  defaced  by  a  geometric  planting  of  fruit-trees,  and 
ranged  in  such  stiff  lines,  and  even  from  that  distance  so  evi- 
dently sickly,  that  they  looked  like  orphan  fruit-trees  that  were 
being  brought  up  in  a  Poor  Law  orchard.  Among  them  stood 
two  or  three  raw-boned  bungalows  painted  those  colours  which 
are  liked  by  plumbers.  But  the  floor  of  the  valley  was  an  osier- 
bed,  and  the  burst  of  sunshine  had  set  alight  the  coarse  orange 
hair  of  the  young  plants. 

"Oh,  they  are  lovely !"  cried  Ellen ;  "but  yon  hillside  is  just 
an  insult  to  them." 

Marion  replied,  walking  slowly  and  keeping  her  eye  on  the 
osiers  with  a  look  that  was  at  once  appreciative  and  furtive, 
as  if  she  was  afraid  of  letting  the  world  know  that  she  liked 
certain  things  in  case  it  should  go  and  defile  them,  that  it  was 
the  Labour  Colony  of  the  Hallelujah  Army,  and  that  they  had 
bought  nearly  all  the  land  round  Roothing  and  made  it  squalid 
with  tin  huts. 

"But  don't  they  do  a  lot  of  good?"  asked  Ellen,  who  hated 
people  to  laugh  at  any  movement  whose  followers  had  stood 
up  in  the  streets  and  had  things  thrown  at  them. 

It  was  evident  that  Marion  considered  the  question  crude. 
"They  even  own  Roothing  Castle,  which  is  where  we're  going 
now,  and  at  the  entrance  to  it  they've  put  up  a  notice,  'Visitors 
are  requested  to  assist  the  Hallelujah  Army  in  keeping  the 
Castle  select/  .  .  .  Intolerable  people.  .  .  ." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Ellen  sturdily,  "they  may  do  good." 

But  to  that  Marion  replied,  grumblingly  and  indistinctly,  that 
style  was  the  only  test  of  value,  and  that  the  fools  who  put 
up  that  notice  could  never  do  any  good  to  anybody,  and  then 
her  eyes  roved  to  the  path  that  ran  down  the  green  shoulder  of 


284  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  escarpment  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley's  neck.  "Ah, 
here's  Mrs.  Winter.  Ellen,  you  are  going  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  social  life  of  Roothing.  This  is  the  vicar's  wife." 

"Is  she  our  sort  of  pairson?"  asked  Ellen  doubtfully. 

"For  the  purpose  of  social  intercourse  we  pretend  that  she 
is,"  answered  Marion  without  enthusiasm. 

They  met  her  on  the  plank  bridge  that  crossed  the  stream 
by  which  the  osier  beds  were  nourished,  and  Ellen  liked  her 
before  they  had  come  within  hailing  distance  because  she  was 
such  a  little  nosegay  of  an  old  lady.  Though  her  colours  were 
those  of  age  they  were  bright  as  flowers.  Her  hair  was  white, 
but  it  shone  like  travellers'  joy,  and  her  peering  old  eyes  were 
blue  as  speedwell,  and  her  shrivelled  cheeks  were  pink  as 
apple-blossom.  She  bobbed  when  she  walked  like  a  ripe 
apple  on  its  stem,  and  her  voice  when  she  called  out  to  them 
was  such  a  happy  fluting  as  might  come  from  some  bird  with 
a  safe  nest.  "Why,  it's  Mrs.  Yaverland.  I  heard  that  you'd 
gone  up  to  town." 

"I  came  back  this  morning.  This  is  Miss  Melville,  whom 
I  went  to  meet.  She  is  going  to  marry  Richard  very  soon." 
Marion  did  not,  Ellen  noticed  with  exasperation,  make  any 
adequate  response  to  this  generous  little  trill  of  greeting.  The 
best  she  seemed  able  to  do  was  to  speak  slowly,  as  if  to  dis- 
claim any  desire  to  hurry  on. 

"Oh,  how  do  you  do?  I  am  pleased  I  met  you  on  the  very 
first  day."  The  old  lady  smiled  into  Ellen's  eyes  and  shook 
her  hand  as  if  she  meant  to  lay  at  her  disposal  all  this  amia- 
bility that  had  been  reared  by  tranquil  years  on  the  leeward 
side  of  life.  "This  will  be  a  surprise  for  Roothing.  We  all 
thought  Mr.  Yaverland  would  never  look  at  any  woman  but 
his  mother.  Such  a  son  he  is!"  Ellen  was  annoyed  that 
Marion  smiled  only  vaguely  in  answer  to  this  mention  of  her 
astonishing  good  fortune  in  being  Richard's  mother.  "I  hope 
Mr.  Winter  will  have  the  pleasure  of  marrying  you." 

"I'm  afraid  not,"  said  Ellen  with  concern.  "I'm  Presby- 
terian, and  Episcopalianism  does  not  attract  me." 

"Oh  dear!  Oh  dear!  That's  a  pity,"  said  the  old  lady, 
with  a  pretty  flight  of  hilarity.  "Still,  I  hope  you'll  ask  us 
to  the  wedding.  I've  known  Richard  since  he  was  a  week  old. 


CHAPTER  HI  THE  JUDGE  285 

Haven't  I,  Mrs.  Yaverland?  He  was  the  loveliest  baby  I've 
ever  seen,  and  later  on  I  think  the  handsomest  boy.  Nobody 
ever  looked  at  my  Billy  or  George  when  Richard  was  about. 
And  now — well,  I  needn't  tell  you,  young  lady,  what  he's  like 
now.  I'm  glad  I've  met  you.  I've  just  been  up  at  Mrs.  More's." 

"Who  is  Mrs.  More?"  asked  Marion  heavily. 

"The  new  people  who  have  the  small-holding  at  Coltsfoot 
the  Brights  had  before.  I  think  he  used  to  be  a  clerk,  and 
came  into  a  little  money  and  bought  the  holding,  and  now 
they're  finding  it  very  difficult  to  get  along." 

"This  small-holding  business  ought  to  be  stopped." 

"Why?"  asked  Ellen  peevishly.  Marion  seemed  to  reject 
everything,  and  she  was  sure  that  she  had  seen  small-holdings 
recommended  in  Labour  Party  literature.  "I  thought  it  was 
sound." 

"Not  here.  Speculators  buy  up  big  farms  and  cut  them  into 
small-holdings  and  sell  them  to  townspeople,  who  starve  on 
them  or  sell  them  at  a  loss.  The  land's  wasted  for  good,  and  all 
because  it  can't  be  farmed  again  once  it's  been  cut  up.  To  all 
intents  and  purposes  it's  wiped  off  the  map.  It's  a  scandal." 

"It  is  a  shame,"  agreed  the  old  lady.  "I  often  say  that 
something  ought  to  be  done.  Well,  the  poor  woman's  lost  her 
baby." 

"Bad  business,"  said  Marion. 

"Such  a  pretty  little  girl.  Six  months.  I've  been  up  seeing 
them  putting  her  in  the  coffin.  The  mother  was  so  upset.  I 
was  with  her  all  day  yesterday." 

"I've  seen  the  place,"  said  Marion.  "As  ugly  as  one  of 
the  Hallelujah  Army  shanties.  What  this  bit  of  country's 
coming  to !  And  Coltsfoot  was  a  good  farm  when  I  was  a 
girl." 

"It  isn't  very  nice  now  certainly.  You  see,  now  that  the 
other  people  have  failed  and  gone  away,  it's  difficult  for  them 
to  get  loads  taken  down  as  there  isn't  a  proper  road.  Before, 
they  did  it  co-operatively  among  themselves.  But  this  winter 
they  say  they've  been  without  coal  quite  often,  and  the  baby's 
been  ill  all  the  time.  I  think  Mrs.  More's  been  terribly  lonely. 
Poor  little  woman,  she's  got  no  friends  here.  All  her  people 
live  in  the  Midlands,  she  tells  me.  I  don't  think  they  can 


286  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

afford  a  holiday,  so  the  next  few  months  will  be  hard  for  her, 
I'm  afraid." 

"Incompetent  people,  I  should  think,  from  what  you  can 
see  of  the  garden.  Annoying  to  think  that  that  used  to  be 
good  wheat-land." 

"They've  never  liked  the  place.  They  were  terrified  of 
losing  the  child  because  of  the  damp  from  the  moment  it  came. 
She's  quite  broken  by  it  all,  poor  thing." 

Marion  began  to  draw  on  the  ground  with  the  point  of  her 
stick. 

"Ah,  well,  you'll  be  wanting  to  get  on,"  said  the  old  lady. 
"Now,  do  bring  your  future  daughter-in-law  to  tea  with  us 
some  day.  I've  got  a  daughter-in-law  staying  with  me  now. 
I  should  like  you  to  meet  Rose.  She  plays  the  violin  very 
nicely.  And  we  have  a  garden  we're  rather  proud  of,  though 
of  course  this  is  the  wrong  time  of  the  year  to  see  it.  Yet  I'm 
sure  things  are  looking  very  nice  just  now.  Just  look  at  it! 
Could  anything,"  she  asked,  looking  round  with  happy  eyes, 
"be  prettier  than  this?  Look  at  the  sunlight  travelling  over 
that  hill !"  She  cast  a  shy  glance  at  Marion,  who  was  con- 
tinuing to  watch  the  point  of  her  stick,  and  bravery  came  into 
her  soft  gay  glance.  "It's  passing  over  the  earth,"  she  said 
tremulously  but  distinctly,  "like  the  kindness  of  God." 

A  silence  fell.  "The  wee  thing  has  courage,"  thought  Ellen 
to  herself.  "It's  plain  to  see  what's  happened.  Marion's  often 
sneered  at  her  religion,  and  she's  just  letting  her  see  that  she 
doesn't  mind.  I  like  people  who  believe  in  something.  Of 
course  it  might  be  something  more  useful  than  Christianity, 
but  if  she  believes  it  .  .  ." 

Marion  lifted  her  head,  stared  at  the  hillside,  and  said, 
"Yes.  And  look.  It  is  followed  by  the  shadow,  like  His  in- 
difference." 

Tears  came  into  the  old  lady's  eyes.  "Good-bye.  We  must 
settle  on  an  afternoon  for  tea.  I'll  send  somebody  round  with 
a  note.  Good-bye."  She  pushed  past  them,  a  grieved  and 
ruffled  little  figure,  a  peony-spot  of  shock  on  each  cheek,  and 
then  she  looked  back  at  Ellen.  "We'll  all  look  forward  to 
seeing  you,  my  dear,"  she  called  kindly ;  but  feared,  Ellen  saw, 
to  meet  the  hard  eyes  of  this  terrible  woman,  who  was  staring 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  287 

after  her  with  a  look  of  hostility  that,  directed  on  this  little 
affirmation  of  love  and  amiability,  was  as  barbarous  as  some 
ponderous  snare  laid  for  a  small,  precious  bird. 

"Let's  get  on,"  said  Marion. 

They  climbed  the  hill  and  went  along  a  path  that  followed 
the  skyline  of  the  ridge,  over  which  the  sea-borne  wind  slid 
like  water  over  a  sluice.  To  be  here  should  have  brought  such 
a  stinging  happiness  as  bathing.  It  should  have  been  wonder- 
ful to  walk  in  such  comradeship  with  the  clouds,  and  to  mark 
that  those  which  rode  above  the  estuary  seemed  on  no  higher 
level  than  this  path,  while  beneath  stretched  the  farm-flecked 
green  pavement  of  Kerith  Island,  and  ahead,  where  the  ridge 
mounted  to  a  crouching  summit,  stood  the  four  grey  towers  of 
the  Castle.  But  the  quality  of  none  of  these  things  reached 
Ellen  because  she  was  wrapped  in  fear  of  this  unloving  woman 
who  was  walking  on  ahead  of  her,  her  stick  dragging  on  the 
ground.  She  was  whistling  through  her  teeth  like  an  angry 
man;  and  once  she  laughed  disagreeably  to  herself. 

They  came  to  a  broken  iron  railing  whose  few  standing  di- 
visions ran  askew  alongside  the  footpath  and  down  the  hillside 
towards  the  marshes,  rusted  and  prohibitive  and  futile. 

"Look  at  them!  Look  at  them!"  exclaimed  Marion  in  a 
sudden  space  of  fury.  "The  Hallelujah  Army  put  them  up. 
It's  like  them.  Some  idea  of  raising  money  for  the  funds  by 
charging  Bank  Holiday  trippers  twopence  to  see  the  Castle. 
It  was  a  fool's  idea.  They  know  nothing.  The  East  End 
trippers  that  come  here  can't  climb.  They're  too  dog-tired. 
They  go  straight  from  the  railway-station  to  Prittlebay  or 
Bestcliffe  sands  and  lie  down  with  handkerchiefs  over  their 
faces.  Those  that  push  as  far  as  Roothing  lie  don  on  the 
slope  of  the  sea-wall  and  stay  there  for  the  day."  She  kicked 
a  fallen  railing  as  she  stepped  over  it  into  the  enclosed  land. 
"The  waste  of  good  iron!  You're  not  a  farmer's  daughter, 
Ellen;  you  don't  know  how  precious  stuff  like  this  is.  And 
look  at  the  thistle  and  the  couch-grass.  This  used  to  be  a  good 
sheep-feed.  The  land  going  sick  all  round  us,  with  these  Hal- 
lelujah Armies  and  small  holdings  and  such-like.  In  ten  years 
it'll  be  a  scare-crow  of  a  countryside.  I  wish  one  could  clear 
them  up  and  burn  them  in  heaps  as  one  does  the  dead  leaves 


288  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

in  autumn."  Fatigue  fell  upon  her.  She  seemed  exhausted 
by  the  manufacture  of  so  much  malice.  With  an  abrupt  and 
listless  gesture  she  pointed  her  stick  at  the  Castle.  "It  isn't 
much,  you  see,"  she  said  apologetically.  And  indeed  there 
was  little  enough.  There  were  just  the  two  towers  on  the  sum- 
mit and  the  two  on  the  slope  of  the  hill  whose  bases  were  set 
on  grassy  mounds  so  that  they  stood  level  with  the  others, 
and  these  had  been  built  of  such  stockish  material  that  they 
had  not  had  features  given  them  by  ruin.  "I'm  afraid 
it's  not  a  fair  exchange  for  Edinburgh  Castle,  Ellen.  But 
there's  a  good  view  up  there  between  the  two  upper  towers. 
Where  the  fools  have  put  a  flagstaff.  I  won't  come.  I'm 
tired.  .  .  ." 

She  watched  the  girl  walk  off  towards  the  towers  and  said 
to  herself,  "She  is  glad  to  go,  half  because  she  wants  to  see 
the  view,  and  half  because  she  wants  to  get  away  from  me. 
I  was  a  fool  to  frighten  her  by  losing  my  temper  with  Mrs. 
Winter.  But  the  blasphemy,  the  silly  blasphemy  of  coming 
from  a  woman  who  has  just  lost  her  baby  and  talking  of  the 
kindness  of  God!  .  .  ."  The  tears  she  had  held  back  since 
they  had  parted  with  the  vicar's  wife  ran  down  her  cheeks. 
It  must,  she  thought,  be  the  worst  thing  in  the  world  to  lose 
an  only  child.  Surely  there  could  be  nothing  worse  in  all  the 
range  of  human  experience  than  having  to  let  them  take  away 
the  thing  that  belongs  to  one's  arms  and  put  it  in  a  coffin. 
There  would  be  a  pain  of  the  body  as  unparalleled,  as  unlike 
any  other  physical  feeling,  as  the  pains  of  birth,  and  there 
would  be  tormenting  fundamental  miseries  that  would  eat  at 
the  root  of  peace.  A  woman  whose  only  child  has  died  has 
failed  for  the  time  being  in  that  work  of  giving  life  which  is 
her  only  justification  for  existence,  and  so  her  unconscious 
mind  would  try  to  pretend  that  it  had  not  happened  and  she 
would  find  herself  unable  to  believe  that  the  baby  was  really 
dead,  and  she  would  feel  as  if  she  had  let  them  bury  it  alive. 
All  this  Marion  knew,  because  for  one  instant  she  had  tried  to 
imagine  what  it  would  have  been  like  if  Richard  had  died 
when  he  was  little,  and  now  this  knowledge  made  her  feel 
ashamed  because  she  was  the  mother  of  a  living  and  unsur- 
passable son  and  there  existed  so  close  at  hand  a  woman  who 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  289 

was  having  to  spend  the  day  in  a  house  in  one  room  of  which 
lay  a  baby's  coffin. 

And  it  was  such  a  horrid  house  too.  Sorrow  there  would 
take  a  sickly  and  undignified  form.  For  the  Coltsfoot  bunga- 
low was  unusually  ugly  even  for  an  Essex  small-holding.  A 
broken  balustrade  round  the  verandah,  heavy  wooden  gables, 
and  an  ingeniously  large  amount  of  inferior  stained  timbering 
gave  it  an  air  of  having  been  built  in  order  to  find  a  last  fraud- 
ulent use  for  a  suite  of  furniture  that  had  been  worn  out  by 
a  long  succession  of  purchasers  who  failed  to  complete  agree- 
ment under  the  hire  system.  There  were  Nottingham  lace 
curtains  in  the  windows,  the  gate  was  never  latched  and  swung 
on  its  hinges,  nagging  the  paint  off  the  gate-post,  at  each  gust 
of  wind.  If  one  passed  in  the  rain  there  was  always  some 
tool  lying  out  in  the  wet.  Ugliness  was  the  order  of  the  day 
there,  and  it  was  impossible  to  believe  that  the  owners  were 
anything  but  weak-eyed,  plain  people. 

The  baby  had  not  really  been  pretty  at  all.  Mrs.  Winter's 
tribute  to  it  had  only  been  the  automatic  response  to  all  aspects 
of  child  life  which  is  cultivated  by  the  wives  of  the  clergy. 
And  the  parents  would  take  the  tragedy  ungracefully.  The 
woman  would  look  out  from  her  kitchen  window  at  her  hus- 
band as  he  pottered  ineffectively  with  the  goat  and  the  fowls 
and  all  the  gloomy  fauna  of  the  small-holding,  which  had,  as 
one  would  not  have  thought  that  animals  could  have,  the  look 
of  being  underpaid.  Perhaps  he  would  kneel  down  among 
those  glass  bells  which,  when  they  are  bogged  in  Essex  clay  on 
a  winter  afternoon,  are  grimly  symbolical  of  the  end  that  comes 
to  the  counter-meteorological  hopes  of  the  small-holder.  The 
fairness  and  weedy  slenderness  which  during  their  courtship 
she  had  frequently  held  out  to  her  friends  as  proof  of  his  un- 
usual refinement,  would  now  seem  to  her  the  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  the  lack  of  pigment  and  substance  which  had 
left  him  at  the  mercy  of  a  speculator's  lying  prospectus.  When 
he  came  in  to  the  carelessly  cooked  meal  there  would  be  a  quar- 
rel. "Why  did  you  ever  bring  me  to  this  wretched  place?" 
She  would  rise  from  the  table  and  run  towards  the  bedroom, 
but  before  she  got  to  the  door  she  would  remember  the  coffin, 
and  she  would  have  to  remain  in  the  sitting-room  to  weep. 


290  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

She  would  not  look  pretty  when  she  wept,  for  she  was  worn 
out  by  child-birth  and  nursing  and  grief  and  lean  living  on  this 
damp  and  disappointing  place.  Presently  he  would  go  out, 
leaving  the  situation  as  it  was,  to  potter  once  more  among  the 
glass  bells,  and  she  would  sit  and  think  ragingly  of  his  futile 
occupation,  while  an  inner  region  of  her  heart  that  kept  the 
climate  of  her  youth  grieved  because  he  had  gone  out  to  work 
after  having  eaten  so  small  a  meal. 

Marion  rose  to  her  feet  that  she  might  start  at  once  for 
these  poor  souls  and  tell  them  that  they  must  not  quarrel,  and 
warn  the  woman  that  all  human  beings  when  they  are  hurt 
try  to  rid  themselves  of  the  pain  by  passing  it  on  to  another, 
and  help  her  by  comprehension  of  what  she  was  feeling  about 
the  loss  of  the  child.  But  immediately  she  laughed  aloud  at 
the  thought  of  herself,  of  all  women  in  the  world,  going  on 
such  an  errand.  If  she  went  to  Coltsfoot  now  the  anticipation 
of  meeting  strangers  would  turn  her  to  lead  as  soon  as  she 
saw  the  house,  and  the  woman  would  wonder  apprehensively 
who  this  sullen-faced  stranger  coming  up  the  path  might  be; 
when  she  gained  admittance  she  would  be  able  to  speak  only 
of  trivial  things  and  her  voice  would  sound  insolent,  and  they 
would  take  her  for  some  kind  of  district  visitor  who  intruded 
without  even  the  justification  of  being  a  church  worker  and 
therefore  having  official  intelligence  about  immortality.  Her 
lips  were  sealed  with  inexpressiveness  when  she  talked  to  any- 
one except  Richard.  She  could  not  talk  to  strangers.  She 
could  not  even  talk  to  Ellen,  with  whom  she  ought  to  have  been 
linked  with  intimacy  by  their  common  love  for  Richard,  with 
whom  she  must  become  intimate  if  Richard's  future  was  to 
be  happy. 

Her  eyes  sought  for  Ellen  in  the  ruins,  but  she  was  not  vis- 
ible. Probably  she  had  gone  into  one  of  the  towers  where 
her  dreams  could  not  be  overseen  and  was  imagining  how 
lovely  it  would  be  to  come  here  with  Richard.  It  must  be 
wonderful  to  be  Richard's  sweetheart.  Marion  had  seen  him 
often  before  as  the  lover  of  women,  but  he  had  never  believed 
in  his  own  passion  for  any  of  them,  and  therefore  there  had 
always  been  something  desperate  about  his  courtship  of  them, 
like  the  temper  of  a  sermon  against  unbelief  delivered  by  a 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  291 

priest  who  is  haunted  by  sceptical  arguments.  But  to  a  woman 
whom  he  really  loved  he  would  be  as  dignified  as  befitted  one 
who  came  as  an  ambassador  from  life  itself,  and  gay  as  was 
allowed  to  one  who  received  guarantees  that  the  fair  outward 
show  of  the  world  is  no  lie;  in  all  the  trivialities  of  courtship 
he  would  show  his  perfect  quality  without  embarrassment.  She 
was  angered  that  she  would  not  be  able  to  see  him  thus.  There 
struck  through  her  an  insane  regret  that  being  his  mother  she 
could  not  also  be  his  wife.  But  this  was  greed,  for  she  had  had 
her  own  good  times,  and  Harry  had  been  the  most  wonderful 
of  sweethearts. 

There  had  been  a  June  day  on  this  very  hill.  .  .  .  She  had 
been  standing  by  the  towers  talking  to  Bob  Girvan  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  when  she  had  left  him  she  had  felt  so  happy  at 
the  show  of  flowering  hawthorn  trees  that  stood  red  and  white 
all  the  way  down  the  inland  slope  of  the  ridge  that  she  began 
to  run  and  leap  down  the  hill.  But  before  she  had  gone  far, 
Harry  had  walked  out  towards  her  from  one  of  the  hawthorns. 
She  had  felt  confused  because  he  had  seen  her  running,  and 
began  to  walk  stiffly  and  to  scowl.  "Good  morning, 
Marion,"  he  had  said.  "Good  morning,"  she  had  answered, 
feeling  very  grown-up  because  she  had  no  longer  bobbed  to 
the  squire.  He  told  her,  looking  intently  at  her  and  speaking- 
in  a  queer,  strained  voice,  that  he  had  found  a  great  split  in 
the  trunk  of  the  white  hawthorn,  and  asked  her  if  she  would 
like  to  see  it.  She  said,  "Yes."  It  struck  her  that  she  had 
said  it  too  loudly  and  in  an  inexpressibly  foolish  way.  Indeed, 
she  came  to  the  conclusion  as  she  followed  him  down  the  hill- 
side that  nobody  since  the  world  began  had  ever  done  anything 
so  idiotic  as  saying  "Yes"  in  that  particular  manner,  and  she 
became  scarlet  with  shame. 

When  they  came  to  the  dazzling  tree  he  advanced  to  it  as  if 
he  cared  nothing  for  its  beauty,  and  showed  her  with  a  gruff 
and  business-like  air  a  split  in  the  trunk.  She  could  not  under- 
stand how  he  had  not  seen  it  before,  as  it  had  been  there  for 
the  last  four  months.  Then  he  had  pointed  up  to  the  towers 
with  his  stick.  "Who's  that  you  were  talking  to  up  there?" 
"Bob  Girvan,"  she  had  answered;  "did  you  want  to  speak  to 
him,  sir?"  He  seemed,  she  thought,  cross  about  something. 


292  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"No,  no,"  he  answered  impatiently,  "but  he's  a  silly  fellow. 
Why  do  you  want  to  talk  to  him  ?"  She  told  him  that  Bob  had 
stopped  to  ask  if  his  father  could  come  over  and  look  at  the 
calf  her  grandmother  wanted  to  sell,  and  that  seemed  to  please 
him,  and  after  that  they  had  talked  is.  little  about  how  the  farm 
had  got  on  since  Grandfather's  death.  Then  he  said  suddenly, 
"I  suppose  that  if  you  don't  go  about  with  Bob  Girvan  there's 
some  boy  who  does  take  you  out.  Isn't  there?"  She  whis- 
pered, "No."  But  he  had  gone  on  in  a  strange,  insistent  tone, 
"But  you're  getting  quite  a  big  girl  now.  Seventeen,  aren't 
you,  Marion?  There'll  be  somebody  soon." 

At  that,  paralysis  fell  on  her.  She  stared  out  of  the  scented 
shadow  in  which  they  stood  together  at  the  masts  of  Roothing 
Harbour  far  away,  wavering  like  upright  serpents  in  the  heated 
air.  Her  heart  seemed  about  to  burst.  Then  she  heard  a 
creaking  sound,  and  looked  about  for  its  cause.  He  had  put 
up  his  arm  and  was  shaking  the  branch  which  hung  over  her 
head  so  that  the  blossom  was  settling  on  her  hair.  When  she 
looked  at  him  he  stopped  aud  muttered,  "Well,  good-bye.  It's 
time  I  was  getting  along,''  and  walked  away.  From  the 
shadow  she  had  watched  him  with  an  inexplicable  sense  of  vic- 
tory rising  in  her  heart,  coupled  with  a  disposition  to  run  to 
someone  old  and  familiar  and  of  authority.  A  year  later  they 
had  stood  once  more  under  that  hawthorn  tree,  and  again  he 
had  shaken  the  mayblossom  down  on  her,  but  this  time  he  had 
laughed.  He  murmured  teasingly,  "Maid  Marion!  Maid 
Marion!"  and  laughed,  and  she  had  looked  up  into  his  eyes. 
Like  many  rakes,  he  had  bright,  innocent  grey  eyes;  and  in- 
deed, again  like  many  rakes,  he  was  in  truth  innocent.  It  was 
because  he  had  remained  as  ignorant  as  a  child  of  the  nature 
of  passion  that  he  had  experimented  with  it  so  recklessly. 

With  her  he  had  delightedly  discovered  love.  Indeed,  she 
had  had  such  a  courtship  that  she  need  envy  no  other  woman 
hers.  For  all  about  her  days  with  Harry  there  had  been  the 
last  quality  the  world  would  have  believed  it  possible  could 
pervade  the  seduction  of  a  farmer's  daughter  of  seventeen  by 
a  squire  who  was  something  of  a  rip:  the  quality  of  a  fair 
dawn  seen  through  the  windows  of  a  church,  of  a  generous 
spring-time  that  synchronised  with  the  beginning  of  some  noble 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  293 

course  of  action.  She  should  have  been  well  pleased.  Yet 
she  knew  now  that  the  occasion  would  have  been  more  beauti- 
ful if,  standing  under  that  may-tree,  she  had  looked  up  into 
Richard's  eyes.  They  would  not  have  been  innocent,  they 
would  not  have  sparkled  like  waters  running  swiftly  under 
sunshine.  But  they  would  have  told  her  that  here  was  the 
genius  who  would  choose  good  with  the  vehemence  with  which 
wicked  men  choose  evil,  who  would  follow  the  aims  of  virtue 
with  the  dynamic  power  that  sinners  have,  who  would  pour 
into  faithfulness  the  craft  and  virility  that  Don  Juan  spent 
on  all  his  adventures.  Besides,  Richard's  eyes  were  so  mar- 
vellously black.  .  .  .  She  reminded  herself  in  vain  that  Harry 
had  possessed  far  beyond  all  other  human  beings  the  faculty 
of  joy,  that  uninvited  there  had  dwelt  about  him  always  that 
spirit  which  men  labour  to  evoke  in  carnival,  that  there  had 
been  a  confidence  about  his  gaiety  as  if  the  gods  had  told  him 
that  laughter  was  the  just  final  comment  on  life.  But  she 
knew  quite  well  that  the  woman  who  was  chosen  by  Richard 
would  be  loved  more  beautifully  than  she  had  ever  been. 

She  started  to  her  feet  and  looked  urgently  towards  the 
ruins  to  see  if  Ellen  was  returning,  because  she  felt  that  if  she 
did  not  commit  herself  to  affection  by  making  some  affection- 
ate demonstration  from  which  she  could  not  withdraw  she 
might  find  herself  hating  this  unfortunate  girl.  Having  once 
known  the  bitterness  of  moral  defeat,  she  dreaded  base  pas- 
sions as  cripples  dread  pain,  and  she  knew  that  this  irrational 
hatred  would  be  especially  base,  a  hunchback  among  the  emo- 
tions. It  would  be  treason  against  Richard  not  to  love  anything 
he  loved;  and  besides,  it  would  be  most  wrong  to  hate  this 
girl,  who  deserved  it  as  little  as  a  flower.  Yet  the  emotion 
seemed  independent  of  her  and  now  nearly  immanent,  and  to 
escape  from  it  she  hurried  across  the  sloping  broken  ground, 
calling  out,  "Ellen,  Ellen !" 

She  could  see  that  there  was  no  one  on  the  level  platform 
by  the  flagstaff,  so  she  took  the  footpath  where  it  fell  below 
the  two  lower  towers,  and  as  soon  as  she  had  passed  the  first 
and  could  look  along  the  hillside  to  the  second  she  stopped. 
Now  she  could  see  Ellen.  The  girl  was  standing  on  the  very 
top  of  the  grassy  mound  that  supported  the  tower,  her  back 


294  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

resting  against  the  wall,  her  feet  on  a  shelf  that  had  formed 
where  the  earth  had  been  washed  away  from  the  masonry 
foundations  by  the  dripping  from  a  ledge  above.  It  was  the 
very  place  where  Marion  had  been  standing  ever  so  long  ago 
at  the  moment  when  Richard  had  first  moved  within  her.  She 
had  dragged  herself  up  the  hill  to  escape  from  the  bickerings  at 
Yaverland's  End,  and  had  been  resting  there,  looking  down  on 
the  peace  of  the  marshes  and  listening  to  the  unargumentative 
cry  of  the  redshanks,  and  wishing  that  she  might  dwell  during 
this  time  among  such  quiet  things ;  and  suddenly  there  came  a 
wind  from  the  sea,  and  it  was  as  if  a  little  naked  child  had 
been  blown  into  her  soul.  All  that  she  felt  was  a  tremor  feeble 
as  the  first  fluttering  of  some  tiny  bird,  and  yet  it  changed  the 
world.  In  that  instant  she  conceived  Richard's  spirit  as  three 
months  before  she  had  conceived  his  body,  and  her  mind  be- 
came subject  to  the  duty  of  awaiting  him  with  adoration  as 
her  flesh  and  blood  were  subject  to  the  duty  of  nourishing 
him.  Harry,  who  had  been  lord  of  her  life,  receded  rushingly 
to  a  place  of  secondary  importance,  and  she  transferred  her 
allegiance  to  this  invisible  presence  who  was  possessed  of  such 
power  over  her  that  even  now,  when  it  could  not  be  seen  or 
touched  or  heard  or  imagined,  it  could  make  itself  loved.  She 
had  stood  there  in  an  ecstasy  of  passion  until  the  sun  had 
fallen  beyond  Kerith  Island.  Then  her  cold  hands  had  told 
her  that  she  must  go  home  for  the  child's  sake;  and  as  if  in 
recognition  of  this  act  of  cherishing  there  had  come  as  she 
climbed  the  hill  another  tremor  that  made  her  cry  out  with  joy. 
Ellen  must  not  stand  there,  or  she  was  bound  to  hate  her. 
It  was  intolerable  that  this  girl  who  was  going  to  be  Richard's 
wife  should  intrude  into  the  sacred  places  of  the  woman  who 
had  to  be  content  with  being  his  mother.  "Ellen,  Ellen !"  she 
vshouted,  and  waved  her  stick.  The  girl  clambered  down  and 
came  towards  her  with  steps  that  became  slower  as  she  came 
nearer.  She  was,  Marion  saw,  looking  at  her  again  under 
faintly  contracted  brows,  and  she  realised  that  because  she 
wept  about  the  child  at  Coltsfoot  her  eyes  were  small  and  red, 
and  that  had  added  to  her  face  a  last  touch  of  ruin  which 
made  it  an  unfavourable  place  for  the  struggles  of  an  unspon- 
taneous  expression  of  amiability.  Of  course  the  girl  was 


CHAPTER  in  THE  JUDGE  295 

alarmed  at  being  called  down  from  her  serene  thoughts  of 
Richard  by  grotesque  wavings  of  a  woman  whose  face  was 
such  a  queer  mask.  But  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  that 
would  explain  it  all.  She  took  refuge  in  silence;  and  knew 
as  they  walked  home  that  that  also  was  sinister. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IT  struck  Marion  that  it  was  very  beautiful  in  this  room  that 
night.  The .  white  walls  were  bloomed  with  shadows  and 
reflections,  and  the  curtains  of  gold  and  orange  Florentine 
brocade  were  only  partly  drawn,  so  that  at  each  window  there 
showed  between  them  an  oblong  of  that  mysterious  blue  which 
the  night  assumes  to  those  who  look  on  it  from  lit  rooms.  On 
the  gleaming  table,  under  the  dim  light  of  a  shaded  lacquer 
lamp,  dark  roses  in  a  bowl  had  the  air  of  brooding  and  pas- 
sionate captives.  Different  from  these  soft  richnesses  as  silk 
is  from  velvet,  the  clear  flame  of  the  wood  fire  danced  again 
in  the  glass  doors  of  one  of  the  bookcases :  and  at  the  other, 
choosing  a  book  in  which  to  read  herself  to  sleep,  stood  Ellen, 
her  head  a  burning  bush  of  beauty,  her  body  exquisitely  at 
odds  with  the  constrictions  of  the  product  of  the  Liberton 
dressmaker.  She  held  a  volume  in  one  hand  and  rested  the 
other  on  her  hip,  so  that  there  was  visible  the  red  patch  on 
her  elbow  that  bespeaks  the  recent  schoolgirl,  and  all  that 
could  be  seen  of  her  face  was  her  nose,  which  seemed  to  be 
refusing  to  be  overawed  by  the  reputation  of  the  author  whose 
work  she  studied.  In  the  swinging  glass  door  beside  her  there 
was  a  diffusion  of  reflected  hues  that  made  Marion  able  to 
imagine  what  she  herself  looked  like,  in  her  gown  of  copper- 
coloured  velvet,  sitting  in  the  high-backed  chair  by  the  fire. 
She  was  glad  that  sometimes,  by  night,  her  beauty  crawled 
out  of  the  pit  age  had  dug  for  it,  and,  orienting  her  thoughts 
as  she  always  did,  she  rejoiced  that  Richard  would  find  such 
an  interior  on  his  return. 

"Have  you  found  a  book  you  like?" 

"No.  There's  lots  of  lovely  ones.  But  none  I  just  fancy. 
I'm  inclined  to  be  disagreeable  and  far  too  particular  this  eve- 
ning. Are  these  your  books  or  Richard's?" 

"Nearly  all  mine." 

"You  must  be  intellectual  then.  Now  mother  was  different. 
No  one  could  have  called  her  an  intellectual,  though  she  could 

296 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  297 

always  take  a  point  if  you  put  it  to  her.  Do  you  know,  you're 
not  like  an  elderly  pairson  at  all.  Usually  one  thinks  of  a  lady 
of  your  age  as  just  a  buddy  in  a  bonnet.  But  you've  got  such 
an  active  mind,  not  like  a  young  pairson's.  I'll  take  Froude's 
'Life  of  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle.'  That  ought  to  do." 

"I  shouldn't  take  it  if  I  were  you.  It's  too  interesting.  It'll 
keep  you  awake." 

"Oh,  I'll  not  sleep  in  any  case.  I  feel  awful  wakeful.  But 
it'll  be  all  right  as  soon  as  Richard  comes." 

Her  tone,  betraying  so  unreproach fully  that  she  quite  ex- 
pected that  till  then  things  would  be  all  wrong,  reminded  Mar- 
ion what  evenings  of  aborted  intimacies  and  passages  of  slow 
liking  truncated  by  moments  of  swift  dislike,  had  passed  in  this 
room  whose  appearance  she  had  been  watching  with  such  sat- 
isfaction. She  reflected  on  the  inertia  which  inanimate  mat- 
ter preserves  towards  the  fret  that  animate  creatures  conduct 
in  its  midst,  the  refusal  of  the  world  to  grow  grey  at  any- 
body's breath.  Exhibited  by  nature  in  the  benedictions  of 
sunlight  that  fall  through  the  court  windows  on  the  criminal 
in  the  dock,  or  the  rain  that  falls  on  the  flags  and  Venetian 
masts  of  the  civic  festival,  it  has  an  air  of  irony.  But  there 
is  obstinacy  about  the  way  a  chair  keeps  its  high  polish  though 
its  sitter  cries  her  eyes  red.  .  .  .  With  alarm  she  perceived 
that  she  was  showing  a  disposition  to  flee  from  a  difficult  sit- 
uation into  irrelevant  thought,  which  she  had  always  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  contemptible  of  male  characteristics.  She 
checked  herself  sharply.  It  was  necessary  that  she  should 
use  the  remaining  moments  of  the  evening  in  making  Ellen 
like  her. 

"I  think  I'll  wish  you  good-night,  Mrs.  Yaverland,"  said 
the  girl. 

"Let  me  come  and  see  if  you've  got  all  you  want." 

But  there  was  nothing  Ellen  wanted.  She  passed  into  the 
room  of  bright  new  things  and  sat  down  on  her  bed  and  ex- 
pressed complete  satisfaction  in  dogged  tones.  "Indeed,  that 
gas-fire's  sheer  luxury,"  she  said,  "for  I'm  strong  as  a  horse. 
Really,  I've  everything,  thank  you.  .  .  ." 

"Let  me  brush  your  hair." 

As  she  took  out  the  coarse  black  pins,  her  heart  rejoiced 


298  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

because  Richard  would  have  all  this  beautiful  hair  to  play 
with;  yet  as  she  brushed  it  out  she  wished  that  his  thirst  for 
beauty  could  have  been  gratified  by  some  inorganic  gorgeous- 
ness,  some  strip  of  cloth  of  gold  in  whose  folds  there  would 
not  lie  any  white  triangle  of  a  face  that  had  to  be  understood 
and  conciliated.  Her  wish  that  it  were  so  reminded  her  how 
much  it  was  not  so,  and  she  bent  forward  and  looked  over  the 
girl's  shoulder  at  her  reflection  in  the  glass.  "It  is  a  face  that 
believes  there  is  no  foe  in  the  world  with  which  one  cannot 
fight  it  out,"  she  thought.  "Well,  that  is  probably  true  for 
her.  I,  with  my  foes  who  are  a  part  of  myself,  am  unusually 
cursed.  If  these  young  people  have  ordinary  luck  they  ought 
to  make  a  fine  thing  of  the  world,  and  I  will  enjoy  standing 
by  and  watching  them.  Oh,  I  must  make  friends  with  her. 
We  have  many  things  in  common.  I  will  talk  to  her  about  the 
Suffragettes.  What  shall  I  say  about  them?  I  do  honestly 
think  that  they  are  splendid  women.  I  think  there  was  never 
anything  so  fine  as  the  way  they  go  out  into  the  streets  know- 
ing they  will  be  stoned.  ..."  A  memory  overcame  her.  "Ah !" 
she  cried  out,  and  laid  down  the  brush. 

"What's  the  matter  ?"  exclaimed  Ellen,  standing  up.  There 
was  a  certain  desperation  in  her  tone,  as  if  she  thought  the 
tragic  life  of  a  household  ought  to  have  a  definite  closing-time 
every  night,  after  which  people  could  go  to  bed  in  peace. 

"I  forgot — I  forgot  to  take  some  medicine.  I  must  go 
and  take  it  now.  And  I  don't  think  I'd  better  come  back.  I'm 
sure  you'll  brush  your  hair  better  yourself.  I'm  sure  I  tugged. 
You're  so  tired,  you  ought  to  go  to  bed  at  once.  Good-night. 
Good-night."  By  the  slow  shutting  of  the  door  she  tried  to 
correct  the  queer  impression  of  her  sudden  flight,  but  knew  as 
she  did  so  that  it  sounded  merely  furtive. 

In  her  own  room  she  undressed  with  frantic  haste  so  that 
she  could  turn  out  the  light  and  retreat  into  the  darkness  as 
into  a  burrow.  But  everywhere  in  the  blackness,  even  on  the 
inside  of  the  sheet  she  drew  over  her  face  as  she  lay  in  bed, 
were  pictures  of  the  aspects  of  evil  the  world  had  turned  to  her 
that  day:  thirty  years  before,  when  she  was  stoned  down  the 
High  Street  of  Roothing.  She  was  in  the  grip  of  one  of  her 
recurrent  madnesses  of  memory.  There  was  no  Richard  to 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  299 

sit  by  her  side  and  comfort  her,  not  by  what  he  said,  for  she 
had  kept  so  much  from  him  that  he  could  say  nothing  that 
was  really  relevant,  but  by  his  beauty  and  his  dearness,  which 
convinced  her  that  all  was  well  since  she  had  given  birth  to 
him ;  so  her  agony  must  go  on  until  the  dawn. 

She  must  get  used  to  that,  because  when  he  was  married 
to  Ellen  she  would  no  longer  be  able  to  sit  up  in  her  bed  and 
call  "Richard,  Richard!"  and  strike  the  bell  that  rang  in  his 
room — that  rang,  as  it  seemed,  in  his  mind,  since  no  other 
sound  but  it  ever  wakened  him  in  the  night.  Not  again  would 
he  stand  at  the  door,  his  dark  hair  damp  and  rumpled,  his 
eyes  blinking  at  the  strong  light,  while  his  voice  spoke  hoarsely 
out  of  undispersed  sleep.  "Mother,  darling  mother,  are  you 
having  bad  dreams  ?"  Not  again  would  she  answer  meaningly, 
"Oh,  Richard,  yes !"  and  tremble  with  delight  in  the  midst  of 
her  agony  to  see  how,  when  this  big  man  was  dazed  and  half 
awake,  he  held  his  arms  upwards  to  her  as  if  he  were  still  a 
little  boy  and  she  a  tall  overshadowing  presence.  In  the  future 
he  must  be  left  undisturbed  to  sleep  in  Ellen's  arms.  That 
thought  caused  her  inexplicable  desolation.  Rather  than  think 
it  she  gave  up  the  struggle  and  allowed  herself  to  be  pos- 
sessed by  memory,  and  to  smart  again  under  the  humiliation  of 
that  afternoon  when  life  had  made  a  fool  of  her.  For  what 
had  hurt  her  most  was  that  she  had  gone  out  into  the  world, 
the  afternoon  it  stoned  her,  in  a  mood  of  the  tenderest  love 
towards  it. 

She  had  risen  late,  she  remembered,  that  day.  All  night 
long  she  had  been  ill,  and  had  not  slept  until  the  first  wrangling 
of  the  birds.  Then  suddenly  she  had  opened  her  eyes,  and 
after  remembering,  as  she  always  did  when  she  woke,  that 
she  was  going  to  have  a  child,  she  had  looked  out  of  her  wide 
window  into  the  mature  and  undoubtful  sunshine  of  a  fine 
afternoon.  She  had  felt  wonderfully  well  and  terribly  hungry, 
and  had  hastened  at  her  washing  and  dressing  so  that  she 
could  run  downstairs  and  get  something  to  eat.  When  she 
went  into  the  kitchen  she  saw  that  dinner  was  over,  for  the 
plates  were  drying  in  the  rack  and  Peggy,  the  maid,  was  not 
there.  It  was  incredible  that  she  had  not  known  why  Peggy 
had  gone  out,  that  she  should  fatuously  have  told  herself  that 


300  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  girl  was  probably  working  in  the  dairy;  but  in  those  days 
her  mind  was  often  half  asleep  with  love  for  the  unborn. 

She  rejoiced  that  she  had  missed  the  family  meal,  for  it 
was  not  easy  to  sit  at  the  table  with  Grandmother  and  Cousin 
Tom  and  Aunt  Alphonsine,  unspoken  comments  on  her  posi- 
tion hanging  from  each  face  like  stalactites.  In  the  larder  she 
found  the  cold  roast  beef,  magnificently  marbled  with  veins 
of  fat,  and  the  cherry  pie,  with  its  globes  of  imperial  purple 
and  its  dark  juice  streaked  on  the  surface  with  richness  ex- 
uded from  the  broken  vault  of  the  pastry,  and  she  ate  largely, 
with  the  solemn  greed  of  pregnancy.  Afterwards  she  washed 
the  dishes,  in  that  state  of  bland,  featureless  contentment  that 
comes  to  one  whose  being  knows  that  it  is  perfectly  fulfilling 
its  function  and  that  it  is  earning  its  keep  in  the  universe  with- 
out having  to  attempt  any  performance  on  that  vexing  instru- 
ment, the  mind. 

When  she  had  finished,  she  wandered  out  of  the  kitchen 
aimlessly,  benevolently  wishing  that  her  baby  was  born  so  that 
she  could  spend  the  afternoon  playing  with  it. 

The  parlour  door  was  ajar,  and  she  peeped  in  and  saw 
Grandmother  sitting  asleep  in  the  high-backed  chair,  a  shaft 
of  sunlight  blessing  her  bent  head  to  silver  and  stretching  a 
corridor  for  dancing  motes  to  the  bowl  of  mignonette.  She 
saw  the  scene  with  the  eye  of  an  oleographer.  In  defiance 
of  experience  she  considered  her  grandmother  as  a  dear  old 
lady,  and  the  hum  of  a  bee  circling  about  the  mignonette 
sounded  like  the  peace  that  was  in  the  room  becoming  articu- 
late and  praising  God.  Enjoyable  tears  stood  in  her  eyes. 
Drying  them  and  looking  round  the  dear  scene,  so  that  she 
might  remember  it,  she  saw  that  the  grandfather  clock  marked 
it  as  half -past  two.  Now  was  the  time  that  she  must  go  for 
her  walk.  The  children  would  be  back  at  school,  the  men 
would  be  at  work,  and  the  women  still  busy  cleaning  up  after 
their  midday  meal.  She  was  afraid  now  to  walk  on  the  Yaver- 
land  lands  for  fear  of  finding  Goodtart,  the  cattleman,  standing 
quite  still  in  some  shadowed  place  where  she  would  not  see 
him  till  it  was  too  late  to  avoid  touching  him  as  she  passed, 
and  turning  on  her  those  dung-brown  eyes  in  which  thoughts 
about  her  and  her  state  swam  like  dead  cats  in  a  canal;  and 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  301 

though  she  desired  to  revisit  the  woods  where  she  had  walked 
with  Harry,  she  had  never  gone  there  since  that  afternoon 
when  Peacey  had  stepped  out  on  her  suddenly  from  behind 
one  of  the  pillars  of  the  belvedere.  The  marshes  too  she 
could  not  visit,  for  she  could  not  now  go  so  far.  But  there 
remained  for  her  the  wood  across  the  lane,  which  ran  from 
the  glebe  land  opposite  Yaverland's  End  and  stretched  towards 
the  village  High  Street.  No  one  ever  went  there  at  this  time 
of  day. 

Her  pink  sunbonnet  was  lying  on  the  dresser  in  the  front 
parlour,  and  she  put  it  on  to  save  the  trouble  of  going  upstairs 
for  a  hat,  though  she  knew  it  must  look  unsuitable  with  her 
dark,  full  gown.  Stealing  out  very  quietly  so  that  she  should 
not  disturb  Grandmother,  she  went  down  the  garden,  smiling 
at  the  robust  scents  and  colours  of  the  flowers.  She  had  a 
feeling  in  those  days  that  nature  was  on  her  side.  The  pur- 
plish cabbage  roses  seemed  to  be  regarding  her  with  clucking 
approval  and  reassurance  that  a  group  of  matrons  might  give 
to  a  young  wife.  The  Dolly  Perkins  looked  at  her  like  a  young 
girl  wondering.  The  Crimson  Ramblers  understood  all  that 
had  happened  to  her.  She  loved  to  imagine  it  so,  for  thus 
would  people  have  looked  at  her  if  she  had  been  married,  and 
she  slightly  resented  for  her  child's  sake  that  she  was  not  re- 
ceiving that  homage.  Humming  with  contentment,  she  crossed 
the  lane  to  the  wood,  whose  sun-dappled  vistas,  framed  by  the 
noble  aspirant  oak-trunks,  stretched  before  her  like  a  promise 
of  happiness  made  by  some  wise,  far-sighted  person. 

It  made  Marion  laugh  angrily,  as  she  lay  there  in  the  bed 
where  she  had  slept  so  badly  in  the  thirty  years  that  had  passed 
since  that  afternoon,  to  remember  how  she  had  walked  in  those 
woods  in  a  passion  of  good-will  to  the  world.  She  dreamed 
complimentary  dreams  of  life,  pretending  that  it  was  not  al- 
ways malign.  She  imagined  that  Harry  would  come  back 
before  the  child  was  born  and  would  cloak  her  in  protective 
passion,  and  his  pride  in  her  would  make  him  take  her  away 
somewhere  so  that  everyone  would  see  that  he  really  loved  her 
and  that  he  did  not  think  lightly  of  her.  Freely  and  honestly 
she  forgave  him  for  his  present  failure  to  come  to  her.  It  was 
his  mother's  fault.  She  had  made  him  marry  when  he  was 


302  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

twenty-one,  so  that  he  had  been  led  to  commit  a  physical 
forgery  of  the  spiritual  fact  of  fatherhood  by  begetting  chil- 
dren who,  being  born  of  a  woman  whom  he  did  not  love,  were 
not  the  children  of  his  soul.  With  aching  tenderness  she  re- 
called the  extreme  poverty  of  the  emotion  that  showed  in  his 
eyes  when  he  spoke  of  his  daughters,  or  when,  as  had  hap- 
pened once  or  twice,  they  had  looked  out  of  the  belvedere  win- 
dow and  seen  the  little  girls  running  by  on  the  brow  of  the 
hill,  white  leggy  figures  against  the  frieze  of  the  distant  shining 
waters. 

It  was  indeed  not  so  much  emotion  as  a  sense  that  in  other 
circumstances  these  things  might  have  aroused  an  emotion 
which,  with  his  comprehensive  greed  of  all  that  was  lovely  in 
the  universe,  he  regretted  being  without.  If  he  had  only  been 
with  her  now  he  would  have  been  given  that,  and  would  have 
found,  like  her,  that  it  is  possible  to  be  ardently  in  love  with 
an  unknown  person.  She  was  so  sorry  he  was  not  here.  But 
she  knew  that  he  would  come  soon,  and  then  he  would  have  the 
joy  of  seeing  his  true  child,  the  child  of  his  soul,  and  beyond 
the  spiritual  joy  that  must  come  of  that  relationship  he  would 
have  the  delight  of  the  exquisite  being  she  knew  she  was 
going  to  bring  forth.  For  she  knew  then  perfectly  what  Rich- 
ard was  going  to  be  like.  She  knew  she  was  going  to  have  a 
son ;  she  knew  that  he  would  have  black,  devout  and  sensitive 
eyes.  She  knew  that  he  would  be  passionate  and  intractable 
and  yet  held  to  nobility  by  fastidiousness  and  love  of  her.  She 
imagined  how  some  day  in  a  wood  like  this,  but  set  in  a 
kinder  countryside,  Harry  would  kneel  in  a  sunlit  clearing, 
his  special  quality  of  gaiety  playing  about  him  like  another 
kind  of  sunshine,  while  there  staggered  towards  him  their  beau- 
tiful dark  child.  He  would  miss  nothing  then,  except  this 
time  of  acquaintance  with  the  unborn,  and  perhaps  he  would 
not  even  miss  that,  for  no  doubt  he  would  make  her  the  mother 
of  other  children. 

At  that  thought  she  stood  still  and  leaned  back  against  the 
trunk  of  a  tree  and  closed  her  eyes  and  smiled  triumphantly, 
and  ran  her  hands  down  her  body,  planning  that  it  should 
perform  this  miracle  again  and  again  and  people  her  world  with 
lovely,  glowing,  disobedient  sons  and  daughters.  She  felt  her 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  303 

womb  as  an  inexhaustible  treasure.  Slowly,  swimmingly,  in  a 
golden  drowse  of  exultation,  she  moved  on  among  the  trees 
till  she  came  to  the  wood's  end,  and  looked  across  the  waste 
patch  scattered  with  knots  of  bramble  and  gorse  at  the  yellow 
brick  backs  of  the  houses  in  Roothing  High  Street  and  knew 
she  must  go  no  further.  For  the  feeling  against  her  was  very 
high  in  the  village.  They  had  told  the  most  foul  stories  of  her ; 
it  was  as  if  they  had  been  waiting  anxiously  for  an  excuse  to 
talk  of  sexual  things  that  they  might  let  loose  the  unclean 
fantasies  that  they  had  kept  tied  up  in  the  stables  of  their 
mind,  that  these  might  meet  in  the  streets  and  breed,  and  take 
home  litters  filthier  than  themselves.  Men  and  women  told 
tales  that  they  could  not  have  believed  simply  that  they  might 
evoke  before  their  minds,  and  strengthened  by  the  vital  force 
of  the  listeners'  hot-eared  excitement,  pictures  of  a  strong  man 
and  a  fine  girl  living  like  beasts  in  the  fields.  Not  only  did 
they  tell  lies  of  how  they  had  watched  her  and  Harry  among 
the  bracken,  they  said  she  had  been  seduced  by  the  young  doc- 
tor who  had  been  locum  tenens  here  in  February,  and  that  they 
had  seen  her  in  the  lanes  with  the  two  lads  that  were  being 
tutored  at  the  Vicarage.  These  things  had  been  repeated  to 
her  by  her  grandmother  in  order  that  she  might  know  what 
disgrace  she  had  brought  on  her  family,  and  in  the  night  she 
had  often  lain  in  a  sweat  of  rage,  wanting  to  kill  these  liars. 
But  that  day,  standing  in  the  sunshine,  she  forgave  them.  She 
was  glad  that  they  had  such  brave  yellow  sunflowers  in  their 
little  wood-fenced  gardens:  she  hoped  that  all  the  women 
would  sometimes  be  as  happy  as  she  was.  She  did  not  know 
that  this  was  no  day  for  her  to  venture  forth  and  forgive  her 
enemies,  since  it  was  the  Lord's  Day,  when  men  ceased  to  do 
any  manner  of  work,  that  they  may  keep  it  holy. 

The  first  warning  she  was  given  was  a  sudden  impact  on  a 
high  branch  of  an  oak-tree  a  yard  or  two  from  where  she  stood, 
and  the  falling  to  earth,  delayed  by  the  thick  crepitant  layers 
of  green-gold,  sun-soaked  leaves,  of  a  cricket  ball.  With  the 
perversity  of  rolling  things  it  dribbled  along  the  broken  ground 
and  dropped  at  last  into  a  mossy  pit  half  filled  with  dead  leaves 
which  marked  where  a  gale  had  once  torn  up  a  young  tree  by 
the  roots;  and  the  next  moment  she  heard,  not  distantly,  the 


304  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

open-mouthed  howl  that  comes  from  a  cricket-field  in  a  mo- 
ment of  crisis.  Then  she  remembered  that  it  was  a  habit  of 
the  young  bloods  of  Roothing  to  evade  their  elders'  feeling 
about  Sabbath  observance  by  going  in  the  afternoon  to  an 
overlooked  wedge  of  ground  that  ran  into  the  woods  and 
playing  some  sort  of  bat-and-ball  game.  This  must  be  Sun- 
day. If  she  did  not  go  home  at  once  she  would  begin  to  meet 
the  village  lovers,  who  would  not  understand  how  well  she 
wished  them,  and  would  look  at  her  with  the  hostility  that  the 
lucky  feel  for  the  unlucky.  But  when  she  turned  to  follow 
the  homeward  path  she  heard  from  all  over  the  wood  scat- 
tered shouts.  The  lads  were  looking  for  their  ball.  One  she 
could  hear,  from  the  breaking  down  of  brushwood,  was  quite 
close  to  her.  Her  best  plan  was  to  hide.  So  she  stood  quite 
still  under  the  low  branches  of  an  elder-tree,  while  George 
Postgate  doubled  by. 

Poor  George !  He  was  seventeen,  and  big  for  that,  but  his 
mind  had  stayed  at  twelve,  and  he  was  perpetually  being  ad- 
mitted in  probation  to  the  society  of  lads  of  his  own  age,  and 
then  for  some  act  of  thick-wittedness  being  expelled  again.  It 
was  plain  from  the  way  that  his  great  horny  fingers  were 
scratching  his  head  and  his  vast  mouth  was  drooping  at  the 
corners  that  it  was  his  fault  that  the  ball  crashed  so  disastrously 
out  of  bounds,  and  that  he  felt  himself  on  the  verge  of  an- 
other expulsion.  "Oh,  ter  dash  with  the  thing !"  he  exclaimed 
mournfully,  and  kicked  a  root,  and  lifted  his  face  to  the  patch 
of  blue  sky  above  and  snuffled.  Marion's  heart  dissolved.  She 
could  not  let  this  poor  stupid  thing  suffer  an  ache  which  she 
was  prevented  from  relieving  only  by  a  fear  of  rudeness  which 
was  probably  quite  unjustified.  "George!"  she  called  softly, 
staying  among  the  branches.  He  gaped  about  him.  "George !" 
she  called  a  little  louder.  "The  ball's  in  the  pit,  among  the 
leaves."  But  he  was  transfixed  by  the  wonder  of  the  bodyless 
voice  and  would  not  pay  any  attention  to  her  directions,  but 
continued  to  gape.  She  saw  that  she  would  have  to  go  and 
show  him  herself,  and  after  only  half  a  moment's  reluctance 
she  stepped  forward.  She  did  not  really  mind  people  seeing 
her,  because  she  knew  that  it  was  only  a  convention  that  she 
was  ugly  because  she  was  going  to  have  a  baby.  For  there 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  305 

was  now  a  richer  colour  on  her  cheeks  and  lips  than  there  had 
ever  been  before  and  her  body  was  like  a  vase.  It  was  only 
when  they  had  awful  thoughts  about  her  that  she  hated  meeting 
them,  and  George  would  not  have  awful  thoughts  about  her  if 
she  did  him  a  good  turn.  So  she  went  over  to  him,  pointing  to 
the  pit.  "I  saw  it  roll  down  there,  George.  Look!  There 
it  is." 

But  he  did  not  pick  up  the  ball.  He  appeared  to  be  petrified 
by  the  sight  of  her.  "Make  haste,"  she  said,  "they'll  be  wait- 
ing for  you."  At  that  he  dropped  his  lids,  and  his  lips  thick- 
ened, and  his  face  grew  red.  Then  he  raised  his  head  again 
and  looked  at  her  with  eyes  that  were  not  dull,  as  she  had 
always  seen  them  before,  but  hot  and  bright,  and  he  began 
to  shift  his  weight  slowly  backwards  and  forwards  from  one 
foot  to  the  other.  Her  heart  grew  sick,  because  all  the  world 
was  like  this,  and  she  turned  again  to  the  path  home.  But 
through  the  tree-trunks  in  that  direction  there  came  two  other 
boys  in  search  of  the  ball — Ned  Turk,  who  to-day  was  the 
station-master  at  Roothing  station,  and  Bobbie  Wickes;  and 
at  the  sight  of  her  they  stood  stock-still  as  George  Postgate 
had  done,  and,  like  him,  dropped  their  heads  and  flushed  and 
lifted  lewd  faces.  A  horror  came  on  her.  It  was  as  if  they 
had  assumed  masks  to  warn  her  that  they  had  some  secret 
and  sinister  business  with  her.  Then  one  pointed  his  hand 
at  her  and  made  an  animal  noise,  and  the  other  laughed  with 
his  mouth  wide  open.  Neither  said  anything.  Their  minds 
were  evidently  engaged  in  processes  beneath  those  which  find 
expression  in  language.  She  stiffened  herself  to  face  them, 
though  she  felt  frightened  that  these  two  boys,  whom  she  had 
known  all  her  life,  with  whom  she  had  ridden  on  the  hay- 
wains  in  summer  and  caught  stickle-backs  in  the  marsh  dykes, 
should  change  to  these  speechless  beings  with  red  leering  masks 
who  meant  her  ill. 

For  the  first  time  she  felt  herself  too  young  for  her  destiny. 
"I  am  only  nineteen,"  she  cried  silently.  Tears  might  have 
disgraced  her  but  that  the  child  moved  in  her  as  if  it  had  looked 
out  at  the  frightening  figures  through  her  eyes,  and  she  sud- 
denly hated  Harry  for  leaving  her  and  his  son  unprotected 
from  such  brutes  as  people  seemed  to  be,  and  was  vivified  by 


306  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    TWO 


the  hatred.  She  made  to  walk  past  the  boys  back  towards  Yav- 
erland's  End,  but  as  she  moved  they  sent  up  shrill  wordless 
calls  to  their  fellows  who  were  still  in  the  fields,  which  were 
immediately  answered.  She  realised  that  any  minute  the 
woods  would  be  full  of  lads  whom  the  sight  of  her  would 
change  to  obscene  creatures,  and  that  being  consolidated  in  this 
undisturbed  place  they  would  say  and  do  things  that  would 
hurt  her  so  much  that  they  would  hurt  her  child.  There  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  leave  the  cover  of  the  wood  and  cross 
the  waste  space  and  walk  down  Roothing  High  Street  and  go 
back  to  Yaverland's  End  by  the  lane.  Her  mood  of  forgiving 
love  for  the  village,  which  the  cricket-ball  had  interrupted, 
had  been  so  real  that  she  felt  as  if  a  pact  had  been  established 
between  it  and  her,  and  she  was  quite  sure  that  she  would  be 
safe  from  the  boys  there.  If  they  were  tiresome  and  followed 
her,  no  doubt  somebody  like  Mrs.  Hobbs,  who  kept  the  gen- 
eral stores,  would  take  her  in  and  let  her  rest  till  it  was  dark, 
and  then  see  her  home.  She  turned  round  and  walked  out  of 
the  wood,  and  because  she  could  not,  in  her  heavy-footed 
state,  trample  through  the  undergrowth,  she  had  to  follow  the 
path  that  led  her  to  within  a  yard  or  two  of  George  Postgate. 
She  could  see  from  the  workings  of  his  large  face  that  he  was 
forming  some  plan  of  action.  And  sure  enough,  when  she 
passed  him,  he  cried  out  "Dirty  Marion!"  and  twitched  the 
sun-bonnet  from  her  head.  The  sudden  movement  made  her 
start  violently,  for  though  she  had  not  known  what  fear  was 
until  she  conceived,  she  now  knew  a  panic-terror  at  anything 
that  threatened  her  body.  That  made  the  boys  shout  with 
laughter  and  call  to  their  friends  to  hurry  up  and  see  the  fun. 
The  sunshine  that  beat  down  on  the  unshaded  field  was  hot 
on  her  bare  head.  It  would  be  awkward  too,  going  into  the 
village  hatless  and  with  ruffled  hair.  But  she  must  not  be 
angry  with  George  Postgate,  for  indeed  the  incident  had  been 
to  him  only  a  means  of  gaining  that  popularity  with  the  f^1- 
lows  that  his  poor  stupid  soul  so  longed  for  and  had  so  often 
been  refused,  and  he  could  not  know  that  the  fright  would 
make  her  feel  so  ill.  Since  the  first  agonising  months  of  her 
pregnancy,  when  nausea  and  faintness  had  pervaded  her  days, 
she  had  never  felt  as  ill  as  this.  A  sweat  had  broken  out  on 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  307 

her  face  and  her  hands;  she  had  to  pant  for  breath  and  her 
limbs  staggered  under  her.  But  she  would  be  all  right  if  she 
could  sit  down  for  one  moment.  There  was  a  hawthorn  stump 
a  little  way  off,  and  to  this  she  made  her  way,  but  as  she  sunk 
down  on  it  a  clod  of  earth  struck  her  in  the  shoulder.  She 
spun  round,  and  another  broke  on  her  face.  Grit  filled  her 
mouth,  which  was  open  with  amazement.  She  had  been  deaf 
with  physical  distress,  so  she  had  not  heard  that  the  boys  had 
gathered  together  on  the  wood's  edge  and  were  now  march- 
ing after  her  in  a  shouting  crowd.  Something  in  her  attitude 
when  she  turned  on  them  made  them  fall  dumb  and  stock-still 
for  a  moment.  But  as  a  gust  of  wind  ruffled  her  hair  and  blew 
her  skirts  about  her  body  a  roar  of  laughter  went  up  from 
them,  and  earth  and  dry  dung  flew  through  the  air  at  her. 

As  she  set  her  face  towards  the  High  Street  again,  which 
still  seemed  very  far  away,  she  sobbed  with  relief  to  see  that 
old  Mr.  Goode,  the  carrier,  had  come  down  to  the  end  of  his 
garden  to  see  what  the  noise  meant,  and  that  he  had  almost 
at  once  gone  back  into  his  house.  Of  course  he  would  come 
out  and  save  her.  In  the  meantime  she  pushed  on  towards  the 
houses,  that  because  of  her  sickness  and  her  fear  rocked  and 
wavered  towards  her  flimsily  like  a  breaking  wave.  A  heavy 
clod  struck  her  in  the  back,  and  she  shrieked  silently  with  ter- 
ror. If  they  hurt  her  she  might  give  birth  to  her  baby  and  it 
would  not  live.  She  had  not  had  it  quite  seven  months  yet,  so 
it  would  not  live.  At  that  thought  anguish  pierced  her  like  a 
jagged  steel  and  she  began  to  try  to  run,  muttering  little  loving 
names  to  her  adored  and  threatened  child.  She  looked  towards 
the  road  to  see  if  old  Mr.  Goode  was  coming,  and  was  sur- 
prised to  see  that  he  was  standing  at  the  gate  of  the  field  with 
two  other  men  and  a  boy.  And  though  they  were  all  looking 
towards  her,  they  made  no  movement  to  come  to  her  help. 
Perhaps  they  did  not  see  what  was  happening  to  her.  It  did 
not  matter.  She  would  be  there  in  a  few  moments.  One  of 
the  boys  had  found  a  tin  can  and  was  beating  on  it,  and  the 
sounds  made  her  head  feel  bad.  She  staggered  on,  looking 
on  the  ground  because  of  the  sun's  strong  glare. 

When  she  found  that  her  feet  had  reached  the  patch  of 
rutted  ground  that  was  around  the  gate,  she  sobbed  with  thank- 


308  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

fulness.  She  threw  out  her  hands  to  the  multitude  of  people 
who  had  suddenly  gathered  there,  and  cried  out  imploringly, 
for  if  someone  would  only  take  her  to  a  place  where  she  could 
lie  down  she  would  be.all  right  and  she  would  keep  her  child. 
But  none  of  them  came  to  her,  and  her  deafened  ears  caught 
a  sound  of  roaring.  She  could  not  see  who  they  were  and 
what  they  were  doing,  for  all  things  looked  as  if  she  saw  them 
through  flowing  water.  But  she  knew  the  tall  figure  by  the 
gatepost  must  be  Mr.  Goode,  so  she  stumbled  to  him  and 
raised  her  head  and  tried  to  find  his  kind  face.  But,  like  the 
boys,  he  wore  a  mask.  Veins  that  she  had  never  noticed  be- 
fore stood  out  red  on  his  forehead  and  his  beard  twitched,  and 
the  funny  lines  that  darted  about  his  eyes,  which  had  become 
small  and  winking,  made  his  face  a  palimpsest  in  which  an 
affected  disgust  overlaid  some  deep  enjoyment.  He  did  not 
seem  to  be  looking  at  her;  indeed,  he  averted  his  eyes  from 
her,  but  thoughts  about  her  made  him  laugh  and  send  out  a 
jeering  cry — wordless  like  the  call  of  the  boys.  She  realised 
that  he  and  these  people  whom  she  could  not  see,  but  who 
must  be  people  who  had  known  her  all  her  life,  had  come  out 
not  to  save  but  to  see  her  ill-treated  and  to  rejoice.  She  stood 
stock-still  and  groaned.  Her  head  felt  wet,  and  she  put  up 
her  hand  and  found  that  a  stone  had  drawn  blood  behind  her 
ear.  The  boys  pressed  close  about  her  and  beat  the  tin  can 
in  her  ears,  and  one  stretched  out  a  stick  and  touched  her, 
which  made  Mr.  Goode  and  the  unseen  enemies  laugh.  But 
at  that  she  shrieked.  She  shrieked  with  such  terrible  anger 
at  those  who  insulted  the  mother  of  her  child,  that  all  their 
jaws  fell  and  they  shrank  back  and  let  her  pass. 

But  when  she  had  gone  a  few  paces  up  the  road  someone 
shouted  something  after  her,  and  there  was  a  noise  of  laughter 
and  then  of  the  shuffling  of  many  feet  behind  her,  and  jeers 
and  cat-calls  and  the  beating  of  the  tin  can.  She  went  on, 
looking  to  the  right  and  the  left  for  some  old  friend  to  come 
out  and  take  her  to  shelter,  but  now  she  knew  that  there  would 
be  none.  These  people  would  drive  her  on  and  on.  And 
when  she  got  home  to  Yaverland's  End,  if  they  would  let  her 
go  there,  and  did  not  trample  her  down  on  the  roadside  first, 
she  would  lose  her  child.  The  core  of  her  body  and  soul  would 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  309 

be  torn  out  from  her,  and  all  promise  of  pleasure  and  all  oc- 
casion of  pride.  For  there  was  no  pleasure  in  the  world  save 
that  to  which  she  had  looked  forward  these  seven  months,  of 
seeing  that  perfect  little  body  that  she  knew  so  well  and  kiss- 
ing its  smooth  skin  and  waiting  for  it  to  open  those  eyes — 
those  black  eyes;  and  there  could  be  no  greater  degradation 
than  to  bring  forth  death,  when  for  months  the  sole  suste- 
nance against  the  world's  contempt  had  been  that  she  was 
going  to  give  birth  to  a  king  of  life.  There  danced  before  her 
eyes  all  the  sons  of  whom  she  was  to  be  bereft  in  the  person  of 
this  son.  The  staggering  child,  the  lean,  rough-headed  boy  of 
ten  with  his  bat,  the  glorious  man. 

Now  her  loss  was  certain.  All  the  people  were  running  out 
into  the  gardens  of  the  little  houses  on  the  right  and  throwing 
up  the  windows  over  the  shuttered  shops  on  the  left,  and  all 
wore  the  flushed  and  amused  masks  that  meant  they  were  de- 
termined that  she  should  lose  her  child.  Mrs.  Hobbs,  who 
kept  the  general  store,  the  kind  old  woman  whom  she  had 
thought  would  take  her  in,  and  Mrs.  Welch,  the  village  drunk- 
ard, were  leaning  over  adjacent  garden  walls,  holding  back 
the  tall,  divine  sunflowers  that  they  might  hobnob  over  this 
delight,  and  their  faces  were  indistinguishable  because  of  those 
masks.  Even  Lily  Barnes,  standing  on  the  doorstep  of  the 
nice  new  Lily  Villa  her  husband,  Job  Barnes  the  builder,  had 
built  for  their  marriage,  with  her  six  months  old  baby  in  her 
arms,  was  thus  disguised,  and  seeming,  like  Mr.  Goode,  to 
look  through  her  old  friend  at  some  obscene  and  delicious  fact, 
sent  up  that  hooting  wordless  cry. 

Marion  was  so  appalled  that  a  woman  carrying  her  baby 
should  connive  at  the  death  of  another's  that  she  stood  quite 
still  and  stared  at  her,  until  the  boys  behind  her  thrust  her 
with  sticks.  When  she  passed  the  alley  between  the  post-office 
and  the  carrier's  she  saw  the  cattle-man,  Goodtart,  looking 
out  at  her  from  its  shadows;  he  did  not  move,  but  his  dark 
brown  eyes  were  more  alive  than  she  had  ever  seen  them.  A 
stranger  stepped  out  of  the  inn  and  laughed  so  heartily  that 
he  had  to  loose  his  neckerchief.  Of  course  she  must  look 
funny,  walking  bareheaded,  with  earth  and  blood  caking  her 
hair,  and  her  skin  sweating  and  yellow  with  nausea  and  her 


310  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

burdened  body,  her  face  grimacing  with  anguish  every  time 
Ned  Turk  danced  in  front  of  her  and  beat  the  tin  can  in  her 
ears. 

"Oh,  my  baby,  my  baby!"  she  moaned.  Ned  Turk  heard 
the  cry  and  repeated  it,  screaming  comically,  "Oh,  my  baby, 
my  baby !"  All  the  crowd  took  it  up,  "Oh,  my  baby,  my  baby !" 
She  shut  her  ears  with  her  hands,  and  wished  that  wherever 
Harry  was,  he  might  fall  dead  for  having  left  her  and  his 
child  to  this. 

Then  from  the  porch  of  the  cottage  at  the  angle  of  the  High 
Street  and  the  Thudersley  Road,  the  cottage  where  Cliffe,  the 
blind  man,  lived  with  his  pretty  wife,  there  stepped  out  Peacey. 
For  a  moment  he  shrank  back  into  the  shadow,  holding  a  hand- 
kerchief in  front  of  his  face,  but  she  had  recognised  the  tall, 
full  body  that  was  compact  and  yet  had  no  solidity,  that  sug- 
gested a  lot  of  thick  fleshy  material  rolled  in  itself  like  an 
umbrella.  It  was  her  last  humiliation  that  he  should  see  this 
thing  happening  to  her.  She  lifted  her  chin  and  tried  to  walk 
proudly.  But  he  had  come  forward  out  into  the  roadway  and 
was  coming  towards  her  and  her  followers.  He  did  not  seem 
quite  aware  of  what  he  was  approaching.  He  walked  delicately 
on  the  balls  of  his  large  and  light  feet,  almost  as  though  the 
occasion  was  joyful;  and  he  held  his  face  obliquely  and  with 
an  air  of  attention,  as  if  he  waited  at  some  invisible  table. 
There  hung  about  him  that  threatening  serial  quality  which 
made  it  seem  that  in  his  heart  he  was  ridiculing  those  who 
tried  to  understand  his  actions  before  he  disclosed  their  mean- 
ing in  some  remote  last  chapter.  It  struck  her,  even  in  the 
midst  of  her  agony,  that  she  disliked  him  even  more  than  she 
disliked  what  was  happening  to  her. 

She  had  thought  that  he  would  smile  gloatingly  into  her 
sweaty  face  and  pass  on.  But  she  saw  swimming  before  her  a 
fat,  outstretched  hand,  and  behind  it  a  stout  blackness  of  broad- 
cloth, and  heard  her  pursuers  halt  and  cease  the  beating  of 
their  tin  cans,  and  came  to  a  swaying  standstill,  while  above  her 
there  boomed,  gently  and  persuasively,  Peacey's  rich  voice. 
She  could  not  pin  her  fluttering  mind  to  what  it  said,  because 
she  felt  sickish  at  the  oil  of  service,  the  grease  of  butlerhood 
that  floated  on  it,  but  phrases  came  to  her.  He  was  asking  the 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  311 

village  people  what  would  happen  when  the  squire  came  home 
and  heard  of  this ;  and  reminding  them  that  they  were  all  the 
squire's  tenants.  A  silence  fell  on  her  pursuers.  From  the 
rear  old  Mr.  Goode's  kind  voice  said  something  about  "A  bit 
of  boys'  fun,  Mr.  Peacey" ;  Ned  Turk  piped,  "We  don't  mean 
no  'arm,"  and  the  crowd  dispersed.  It  shuffled  its  heels  on  the 
cobbles;  it  raised  jeers  which  were  mitigated  and  not  sent  in 
her  direction,  but  were  still  jeers;  it  beat  its  tin  cans  in  a 
disoriented  way,  as  if  it  were  trying  to  save  its  self-respect 
by  pretending  that  Mr.  Peacey  had  been  so  much  mistaken  in 
the  object  of  their  demonstration  that  there  was  no  harm  in 
going  on  with  it. 

She  was  left  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  alone  with 
Peacey.  She  realised  that  she  was  safe.  If  she  could  rest 
now  she  would  keep  her  child.  She  knew  relief  but  not  ex- 
ultation. It  was  as  if  life  had  been  handed  back  to  her,  but  not 
before  some  drop  of  vileness  had  been  mixed  with  the  cup. 
There  was  nothing  to  redeem  the  harm  of  that  afternoon :  the 
quality  of  her  rescue  had  exactly  matched  the  peril  from  which 
she  had  been  rescued.  When  Peacey's  voice  had  boomed  out 
above  her  it  had  expressed  agreeable  and  complete  harmony 
with  the  minds  of  the  crowd;  it  had  betrayed  that  he,  too, 
could  imagine  no  pleasure  more  delightful  than  stoning  a  preg- 
nant girl,  that  he  had  his  position  to  think  of,  and  he  begged 
them  to  have  similar  prudence.  He  had  risked  nothing  of 
rns  reputation  as  a  just  man  in  Roothing  to  save  her.  To  this 
loathsome  world  Harry,  who  had  been  her  lover  for  two  years, 
had  left  her  and  her  divine  child.  She  looked  up  at  Peacey 
and  laughed. 

His  eyes  dwelt  on  her  with  what  might  have  been  forgive- 
ness. "You'd  best  come  into  ClifTe's  cottage,"  he  said,  and 
went  before  her.  It  struck  her,  as  she  followed  him,  that  to 
people  watching  them  down  the  street  it  would  look  as  if  she 
was  following  him  almost  against  his  will  or  without  his 
knowledge.  Well,  she  must  lie  down,  and  this  was  the  only 
door  that  was  open  to  her.  She  must  follow  him. 

Once  they  were  within  the  porch  he  bent  over  her  solici- 
tously, and  through  his  loose-parted  lips  came  the  softest  mur- 
mur :  "Poor  little  girl !"  Had  he  said  that  for  her  to  hear,  or 


312  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

had  some  real  tenderness  in  his  heart  spoken  to  itself  ?  Was  he 
really  a  kind  man?  She  looked  at  him  searchingly,  implor- 
ingly, but  from  his  large,  shallow-set  grey  eyes,  which  he  kept 
fixedly  on  her  face,  she  could  learn  nothing.  In  any  case 
she  must  take  his  arm,  or  she  would  fall.  She  even  found 
herself  shrinking  towards  his  pulpy  body  as  he  pushed  open 
the  door,  because  she  was  afraid  the  people  inside  might  not 
welcome  her.  She  did  riot  know  the  Cliffes,  for  they  were 
Canewdon  people  who  had  moved  here  four  or  five  years  back, 
when  Grandmother  was  too  old  and  she  was  too  young  to 
make  friends  with  a  young  married  woman.  But  its  trim 
garden,  where  on  golden  summer  evenings  she  had  seen  the 
blind  man  clipping  the  hedge,  his  clouded  face  shyly  proud  at 
such  a  victory  over  his  affliction,  while  his  wife  stood  by  and 
smiled,  half  at  his  pleasure  and  half  at  her  own  loveliness, 
and  the  windows,  lit  rosily  at  night,  had  often  set  Marion 
wishing  that  Harry  and  she  were  properly  married.  Because 
she  had  received  the  impression  that  this  was  a  happy  home, 
she  was  uneasy,  for  of  late  she  had  learned  that  happy  people 
hate  the  unhappy.  But  the  shaft  of  sunlight  that  traversed  the 
parlour  into  which  they  stepped  was  as  thickly  inhabited  with 
dancing  motes  as  if  they  were  stepping  into  some  vacated 
house  given  over  to  decay.  There  was  dust  everywhere,  and 
the  grandfather  clock  had  stopped,  and  the  peonies  in  the 
vase  on  the  table  had  died  yesterday;  and  the  woman  who 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  looking  down  at  her  hands 
and  turning  her  wedding  ring  on  her  finger,  was  not  pretty 
or  joyous.  Her  face  was  a  smudge  of  sullenness  under  hair 
that  was  elaborately  dressed  yet  was  dull  for  lack  of  brushing, 
and  her  body  drooped  within  the  stiff  tower  of  her  thickly- 
boned  Sunday-best  dress.  She  looked  at  Marion  without 
curiosity  from  an  immense  distance  of  preoccupation.  There 
came  from  a  room  at  the  back  of  the  house  the  strains  of 
"Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee/'  played  on  the  harmonium,  and  at 
that  she  made  a  weak,  abstracted  gesture  of  irritation. 

"Go  and  get  a  basin  of  water  and  a  bit  o*  rag.  The  girl's 
head's  bleeding,"  said  Peacey,  and  she  went  out  of  the  room 
obediently.  He  collected  all  the  cushions  in  the  room  and 
piled  them  on  the  horsehair  sofa,  and  helped  her  to  lie  com- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  313 

fortably  down  on  them.  Then  he  walked  to  the  window,  and 
stood  there  looking  out  until  Mrs.  Cliffe  came  back  into  the 
room.  He  took  the  basin  without  thanks,  and  set  it  down  on 
a  chair  and  began  to  bathe  Marion's  head,  while  Mrs.  Cliffe 
stood  by  watching  incuriously. 

"Now  then,  Trixy,"  he  said,  not  unpleasantly,  "you'd  best 
go  into  the  back  parlour  and  listen  to  your  beloved  husband 
playing  hymns  so  trustfully." 

She  went  away,  still  without  speaking,  and  Marion,  no  longer 
feeling  defensive  before  a  stranger,  closed  her  eyes.  Really  his 
fat  hands  were  very  gentle,  very  clever  and  quick.  After  a 
few  moments  he  had  finished,  and  she  was  able  to  turn  her  face 
to  the  wall  and  talk  to  her  baby  that  had  been  saved  to  her, 
and  to  exult  that  after  all  she  would  see  those  eyes.  She 
shivered  to  think  how  nearly  she  had  lost  him,  and  was  trans- 
fixed by  her  hatred  of  Harry.  She  turned  hastily  and  faced 
the  room. 

Peacey  was  watching  her  with  his  quiet  eyes.  He  said  in  a 
silken  voice,  "This  sort  of  thing  wouldn't  happen  to  you  if 
you  were  married  to  me." 

She  lay  quite  still,  looking  at  the  ceiling.  She  knew  that 
what  he  said  was  true. 

"You've  looked  at  me  as  if  I  were  a  pickpocket,  you  have," 
he  went  on,  "just  because  I  want  to  marry  you.  I  don't  hold 
it  against  you.  You're  young.  That  young,  that  it's  a  shame 
this  has  happened  to  you.  But  after  to-day  perhaps  you'll 
judge  me  a  bit  fairer.  You  see,  I'm  older  than  you,  and  I've 
seen  a  bit  of  the  world,  and  I  know  how  things  are.  And  I 
knew  you'd  have  a  nasty  jar  like  you  had  to-day  before  you 
were  through  with  it.  And  I  don't  doubt  you'll  have  a  few 
more  before  you're  done.  It  ain't  too  good  for  the  little 
one,  if  you'll  excuse  me  mentioning  it.  You  can't  expect  a 
man  of  any  feelings  to  look  on  without  trying  to  do  what 
he  can." 

She  looked  up  to  scan  his  face  for  some  sign  of  sincerity, 
and  found  herself  for  the  first  time  wishing  that  she  might  find 
it  and  have  reason  to  distrust  her  own  dislike  of  him.  But  he 
was  sitting  sideways,  with  his  head  turned  away  from  her, 
and  she  could  see  nothing  of  him  but  his  hot  black  clothes  and 


314  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

his  fat  hand  slowly  stroking  the  thigh  of  his  crossed  leg  in  its 
tight  trouser.  A  sigh  shook  the  dark  bulk  of  his  back. 

"Me  of  all  men,"  he  said  softly,  "who  had  such  a  mother." 

There  was  a  long  pause.     She  grew  curious. 

"Is  she  dead?"  she  asked. 

"Died  when  I  was  ten.  Not  a  soul's  ever  cared  for  me 
since  then.  I'm  not  sorry.  It's  made  me  remember  her  all 
the  better.  And  she  was  one  of  God's  saints." 

His  voice  was  husky.  She  muttered,  "I  am  sorry,"  and 
was  annoyed  to  find  that  she  really  was. 

"Why  need  you  be?"  he  asked.  "There's  those  that  haven't 
that  much  to  look  back  on.  All  I  want  from  you,  Miss  Marion, 
is  to  let  me  help  you.  Or  at  least  not  to  think  ill  of  me  for 
wanting  to  help  you." 

He  sat  still  for  a  moment  and  continued  to  stroke  his  thigh. 

"Marion,"  he  began  abruptly,  and  then  paused  as  if  to  brace 
himself.  "Marion,  I  hope  you  understand  what  I'm  asking 
you  to  do.  I'm  asking  you  to  marry  me.  But  not  to  be  my 
wife.  I  never  wouldn't  bother  you  for  that.  I'm  getting  on 
in  life,  you  see,  so  that  I  can  make  the  promise  with  some 
chance  of  keeping  it.  And  besides,  there's  more  than  that 
to  it.  How,"  he  asked,  lifting  his  head  and  speaking  minc- 
ingly,  "should  I  presume  to  go  where  Sir  Harry's  been?  I 
would  never  ask  you  to  be  a  wife  to  me.  Just  to  accept  the 
protection  of  my  name,  that's  all  I  ask  of  you." 

They  sat  for  a  while  in  the  embrowned  sunshine  of  the 
dusty  room. 

He  rose  and  stood  over  her,  drooping  his  sleek  head  benevo- 
lently. "Ah,  well,"  he  said,  "I'd  best  leave  you  alone.  God 
knows  I  never  meant  to  intrude  on  you.  Perhaps  you  would 
take  a  little  doze  now,  and  after  tea  I'll  take  you  home."  He 
looked  on  her  moistly,  tenderly.  "Think  kindly  of  me  if  you 
dream."  Some  emotion  coagulated  his  voice  to  a  thick,  slow 
flow.  "You'll  be  the  only  woman  who  ever  has  thought  of  me 
in  her  dreams  if  you  do.  I've  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
women  all  my  life.  You  see,  I  know  I've  got  an  ugly  mug.  I 
wouldn't  dare  to  make  love  to  any  woman  in  case  I  saw — 
what  I've  seen  in  your  face — what  I  saw  in  your  face  that  night 
I  came  out  on  you  from  the  belvedere.  Oh,  I  don't  blame  you, 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  315 

Miss  Marion.  You're  young — you're  beautiful.  You've  had 
a  real  gentleman  for  your  sweetheart.  But  I  don't  see  why 
I  shouldn't  help  you.  Still,  if  you  don't  see  it  so  .  .  ."  He 
sighed,  and  brought  his  hands  together  and  bowed  over  them. 
His  eyes  passed  deliberately  over  her  matronly  body,  as  if  he 
knew  his  thoughts  about  her  were  so  delicate  that  no  suspicion 
of  indelicacy  could  arise  out  of  his  contact  with  her.  "Poor 
little  Miss  Marion,"  he  murmured  in  an  undertone,  and  wheeled 
about  and  padded  to  the  door.  He  turned  there  and  stood,  his 
body  neckless  and  sloping  like  a  seal's,  and  said  softly,  "And 
don't  think  it  was  me  who  put  Lady  Teresa  up  to  coming 
down  to  Yaverland's  End  to-morrow  morning.  It  is  her  lady- 
ship's own  idea.  I  said  to  her,  'Leave  the  poor  girl  alone/ 
I  have  always  said  to  her,  'Leave  the  poor  girl  alone/  "  His 
voice  faded.  He  moved  vaporously  out  of  the  room. 

One  is  too  harsh  to  one's  dead  self.  One  regards  it  as  the 
executor  and  residuary  legatee  of  a  complicated  will  dealing 
with  a  small  estate  regards  the  testator.  Marion  shook  with 
rage  at  the  weak  girl  of  thirty  years  ago  who  lay  on  the  sofa 
and  stared  at  the  grained  panels  of  the  closed  door  and  let  the 
walls  of  her  will  fall  in.  Then  it  was  that  her  life  had  been 
given  its  bias  towards  her  misery.  Then  it  was  there  was 
conceived  the  tragedy  which  would  come  to  a  birth  at  which 
all  present  should  die.  "What  tragedy?  What  tragedy?"  she 
said  derisively,  sitting  up  in  bed.  There  spoke  in  her  the 
voice  of  her  deepest  self.  "The  tragedy,"  it  answered  com- 
posedly. "The  tragedy.  Did  you  not  know  almost  as  soon 
as  Richard  stirred  in  you  that  he  would  have  eyes  like  black 
fire  ?  Were  you  not  perfectly  acquainted  long  before  his  birth 
with  all  the  modes  in  which  his  body  and  soul  were  to  move, 
so  that  nothing  he  has  done  has  ever  surprised  you  ?  Even  so, 
you  have  always  known  that  the  end  of  you  and  yours  will 
be  tragedy."  "What  could  happen  to  my  Richard?"  she  ar- 
gued. "He  is  well,  he  is  prosperous,  he  has  this  lovely  Ellen 
who  will  be  a  watchdog  to  his  happiness.  Tragedy  cannot 
touch  him  unless  the  gods  send  down  fire  from  heaven,  and 
there  are  no  gods.  There  are  no  gods,  but  there  are  men,  and 
fire  that  comes  from  the  will."  She  groaned,  and  lay  back  and 
wrapped  the  sheets  round  her  closely  like  cerements,  as  if  by 


316  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

shamming  dead  she  could  cast  off  the  hot  thoughtfulness  of 
life.  But  indeed  she  gained  some  comfort  from  this  dialogue 
with  that  uncomfortable  self,  for  she  knew  again  how  wise 
it  was,  and  its  predictions  seemed  irrational  only  because  it  had 
remembered  all  that  her  consciousness  had  determined  to  for- 
get for  fear  it  threw  so  strong  a  light  on  her  fate  that  she  would 
lose  her  courage  to  live. 

Her  reasoning  self  was  a  light,  irreligious  thing,  and  thought 
about  what  she  should  eat  and  what  she  should  drink  and 
where  she  should  sleep,  but  this  other  self  had  never  awakened 
save  to  speak  of  Harry  or  Richard.  She  trusted  it,  and  she 
could  recall  quite  definitely  that  on  that  afternoon  thirty  years 
before  it  had  sanctioned  her  decision  to  abandon  conflict  and 
do  what  people  wished  to  do.  It  knew,  what  her  consciousness 
had  forgotten,  of  how  she  herself  had  felt  when  she  was  with- 
in her  mother's  womb,  and  it  was  able  to  warn  her  that  her 
unborn  baby  was  seriously  thinking  of  revising  its  decision 
to  live.  While  she  had  staggered  under  the  stones,  the  child 
had  quailed  in  the  midst  of  her  terror  like  a  naked  man  above 
whom  breaks  a  thunderstorm ,  her  nerves  had  played  round  him 
like  a  shaft  of  lightning,  her  loud  heart-beat  had  been  the  thun- 
der. Now  her  fear-poisoned  blood  gave  it  sickly  nourishment, 
at  which  the  foetal  heart  beat  weakly,  so  that  the  embryo  knew 
what  the  born  know  as  faintness.  The  system  of  delicate 
mechanical  adjustments  by  which  it  poises  in  the  womb  was 
for  the  moment  dislocated,  and  at  this  violent  warning  of  what 
life  can  be  its  will  to  live  was  overcast  by  doubt.  If  she  could 
rest  here  now,  and  go  home  and  have  a  long  sleep,  and  sit  all 
the  next  morning  on  the  brow  of  the  hill  and  watch  the  fish- 
ing-boats lie  like  black,  fainting  birds  on  the  shining  flats,  the 
child  would  feel  her  like  a  peaceful  fane  around  it  and  it 
would  decide  to  live.  But  if  Harry's  mother  came  to  see  her 
next  day  it  would  forsake  her. 

She  would  come  very  early,  for  she  was  one  of  those  people 
who  suffer  from  a  displaced  day  as  others  suffer  from  a  dis- 
placed heart,  and  rose  at  six.  Long  before  Marion  had  com- 
pleted the  long  sleep  that  was  necessary  for  the  reassurance  of 
her  child  she  would  be  shaken,  and  look  up  into  her  grand- 
mother's face,  which  she  did  not  like,  for  though  the  expres- 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  317 

sions  that  passed  over  it  were  the  same  as  they  had  always 
been,  it  was  now  overlaid  with  a  patina  of  malice.  She  would 
smile  now,  as  she  dared  to  years  ago,  when  she  used  to  tell 
her  little  granddaughter  that  Lady  Teresa  had  come  to  give  her 
a  present  for  reciting  so  nicely  at  the  church  school  concert, 
but  all  her  aspect  would  mean  hatred  of  this  girl  who  had  been 
given  the  romantic  love  that  she  had  been  denied,  and  hope 
that  its  fruit  might  be  destroyed.  The  room  would  be  tidied; 
her  drowsy  head  would  be  tormented  by  the  banging  of  draw- 
ers and  the  rustling  of  paper.  Out  of  consideration  for  Lady 
Teresa's  feelings  the  photograph  of  Harry  by  her  bed  would 
be  turned  face  downwards.  That  she  would  not  really  mind, 
for  she  would  have  liked  to  take  it  out  of  the  frame  and  tear 
it  to  pieces ;  but  she  would  have  to  pretend  that  she  minded. 

Then  there  would  burst  into  her  room  the  trailing  and 
squawking  personality  of  Lady  Teresa.  She  would  bring  with 
her  a  quantity  of  warm  black  stuffs,  for  she  was  one  of  the 
most  enthusiastic  followers  of  Queen  Victoria  in  the  attempt 
to  express  the  grief  of  widowhood  by  a  profusion  of  dark  dry 
goods,  and  she  would  sit  close  to  the  bed,  so  that  Marion  would 
lose  nothing  of  the  large  face,  with  its  beak  nose  and  its  bag- 
ging chin  and  its  insulting  expression  of  outraged  common 
sense,  or  of  the  strangulated  contralto  in  which  she  would  urge 
that  there  was  no  reason  why  any  sensible  gel  should  not  be 
proud  to  marry  the  butler  at  Torque  House.  By  sheer  noisi- 
ness she  would  make  Marion  cry.  The  child  would  doubt 
again.  .  .  .  Since  these  things  would  have  happened  she  could 
not  do  other  than  she  did.  Her  surrender  was  the  price  she 
had  to  pay  for  Richard's  life. 

How  artfully,  moreover,  it  was  disguised  from  her  that  she 
was  going  to  pay  any  real  price !  She  looked  back  through  the 
past  at  Peacey's  conduct  of  that  matter  as  one  might  look 
through  the  glass  doors  of  a  cabinet  at  some  perfect  and  ob- 
scene work  of  art.  He  had  laid  his  hand  so  wonderfully  across 
his  face  while  he  was  speaking  of  his  ugliness,  so  that  the 
drooping  fingers  seemed  to  tell  of  humility  and  the  renuncia- 
tion of  all  greeds.  And  that  candid,  reverent  gaze  which  he 
turned  upon  her  to-day  had  been  so  well  calculated  to  speak 
of  purity  to  one  who  had  shivered  under  sidelong  leers.  He 


318  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

had  indeed  that  supreme  mastery  over  vice  which  comes  of  a 
complete  understanding  and  dilettante  love  of  virtues.  He 
knew  how  the  innocent  hunger  for  love  and  pity,  and,  know- 
ing well  what  these  things  were,  he  could  speak  as  one  who 
came  as  their  messenger.  Loathingly  and  yet  giving  homage 
to  his  workmanship,  she  recalled  that  later  scence  by  which  he 
had  added  a  grace  note  to  his  melody  of  wickedness  and  made 
so  sweet  a  song  of  it  that  her  will  had  failed  utterly. 

Mrs.  Cliffe  had  come  in  with  a  cup  of  tea  and  some  cake  on 
a  tray.  "You'll  feel  better  for  this,"  she  said,  and  while  Marion 
had  ate  and  drunk  she  had  stood  by  the  window  and  looked 
at  her.  It  seemed  to  Marion  that  she  had  greatly  changed  of 
late.  Before,  she  had  belonged  very  definitely  to  the  shop- 
assistant  class,  which  differentiated  itself  from  the  women-folk 
of  the  village  by  keeping  shapely  and  live-witted  even  after 
marriage.  But  now  she  stood  humpishly  in  her  great  apron 
like  any  cottager's  wife,  and  her  hand,  which  she  set  akimbo, 
looked  red  and  raw  and  stupid.  The  way  she  stared  at  Mar- 
ion's figure,  too,  was  indicative  of  a  change  from  her  pristine 
gentility. 

"Funny  I  never  heard  of  you  being  like  this,"  she  said  at 
last. 

"It  is.     I  thought  everyone  was  talking  about  it." 

"They  may  be.  But  there's  times  when  one  doesn't  listen 
to  what  people  are  saying."  For  a  time  she  was  silent.  "Ah, 
well,"  she  meditated  bitterly,  "it  doesn't  pay  to  do  wrong, 
does  it?" 

"I  haven't  done  wrong,"  said  Marion. 

"So  you  say  now,"  Mrs.  Cliffe  told  her,  "but  there'll  come  a 
day  when  you  see  you  have."  She  drew  in  her  breath  with  a 
little  gasp  as  Peacey  put  his  head  in  at  the  door. 

He  looked  sharply  from  one  to  the  other,  and  then  advanced 
to  Marion's  couch,  rubbing  his  hands  genially.  "Now  then, 
Trixy,"  he  said  teasingly,  "you  don't  want  me  to  talk  too  long 
to  your  beloved  husband,  do  you?  I  might  go  telling  him 
things  about  you,  mightn't  I?  You  run  along  and  look  after 
him."  Mrs.  Cliffe  retired  quite  taciturnly,  nothing  in  her  face 
responding  to  this  rallying,  and  he  bent  quickly  over  Marion. 
"I  hope  she  hasn't  been  worrying  you?"  he  asked.  Concern 


CHAPTER  iv  THE  JUDGE  319 

for  her  ? — it  sounded  just  like  concern  for  her — made  his  voice 
tremble.  "That's  why  I  hurried  back.  Women  are  so  nar- 
row-minded to  their  poor  sisters  who  haven't  been  so  fortunate. 
I  thought  she  might  have  been  making  you  feel  a  bit  uncom- 
fortable." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Marion. 

The  mask  of  his  poor  ugly  face,  which  had  been  grotesque 
with  pitying  lines,  became  smooth.  He  sighed  with  relief, 
and  sat  down  by  her  side,  very  humbly. 

"But  she  was  beginning  to  talk  rather  strangely,"  the  poor 
fool  Marion  had  continued.  "I  think  she's  altered  very  much 
lately." 

"Do  you  know,  I  was  thinking  so  myself,"  Peacey  had  an- 
swered reflectively.  "I  wonder  if  she's  got  anything  on  her 
mind.  I  wish  I  could  find  out.  One  doesn't  like  a  'ome  of 
friends  not  to  share  its  worries  with  you,  without  giving  you  a 
fair  chance  to  'elp.  I  must  see  whether  I  can  get  it  out  of  *er." 

Oh,  he  was  a  kind  man.  He  was  certainly  very  kind.  She 
put  down  her  cup  and  braced  her  body  and  her  soul,  and  said, 
"Mr.  Peacey  .  .  ." 

The  world  had  deceived  her  utterly  that  day ;  and  yet  there 
was  one  in  that  cottage  who  had  suffered  more  than  she,  for  by 
her  suffering  she  had  bought  no  Richard.  Poor  Mrs.  Cliffe! 
She  was  a  woman  of  sixty  now,  white-haired,  and  fine-featured 
with  the  anxious  fineness  of  one  who  has  for  long  lived  out  of 
favour  with  herself  and  has  laboured  hard  for  re-establish- 
ment ;  but  the  fear  still  dwelt  in  her.  Most  times  that  Marion 
passed  down  Roothing  High  Street,  and  saw  the  old  woman 
sitting  knitting  in  the  garden  while  her  old  blind  husband 
shuffled  happily  here  and  there,  they  would  but  bow  and  smile 
and  look  away  very  quickly.  But  every  now  and  then,  per- 
haps once  a  year,  she  would  put  down  her  knitting  so  soon  as 
Marion  came  in  sight  and  come  into  the  road  to  meet  her  and 
would  give  her  nervous,  absent-minded  greetings.  Then  she 
would  draw  her  into  the  furthest  edge  of  the  pavement,  be- 
cause the  blind  have  such  sharp  hearing,  and  she  would 
whisper : 

"Have  you  heard  from  him  lately?" 

"No." 


320  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"He's  still  at  Dawlish?" 

"They  say  so." 

"Do  you  think  he  will  ever  come  back?" 

"No.    He  will  never  come  back." 

"Ah."  She  would  stand  looking  past  Marion  with  her  face 
cat's-pawed  by  memory  and  her  ringers  teasing  the  fringe  of 
her  shawl,  till  from  the  garden  the  blind  old  man  would  cry 
lovingly  and  querulously,  "Trixy,  where  are  you?"  and  she 
would  answer,  "Coming,  dearie."  As  she  turned  away  she 
would  murmur:  "I  shouldn't  like  him  to  come  back.  .  .  ." 

Poor  Trixy  Cliffe !  She  should  have  known  only  the  sorrow 
of  pure  femalehood,  such  sorrow  as  makes  the  eyes  of  heifers 
soft.  Women  like  her  should  be  harvested  like  corn  in  their 
time  of  ripening,  stored  in  good  homes  as  in  sound  barns,  and 
ground  in  the  mill  of  wifehood  and  motherhood  into  the  flour 
that  makes  the  bread  by  which  the  people  live.  But  there 
must  have  been  some  beauty  working  in  her  soul,  for  Peacey 
went  only  where  he  saw  some  opportunity  to  cancel  some  move- 
ment towards  the  divine,  being  a  missionary  spirit.  So  she  had 
been  delivered  over  to  that  terror  which  survived  for  ever. 
Even  in  the  exorcised  blue  territory  of  a  good  old  woman's 
eyes.  "Oh,  poor  Trixy,  poor  Trixy!"  moaned  Marion,  weep- 
ing. But  it  struck  her  that  she  was  enjoying  herself,  and  she 
sat  up  rigidly  and  searched  her  soul  for  the  smuggled  insin- 
cerity. "I  must  be  lying,"  she  said  aloud  with  loathing.  "I 
really  cannot  be  pitying  Trixy  Cliffe  because  in  my  heart  of 
hearts  I  care  for  no  one  but  Richard.  I  would  knead  the  flesh 
of  anyone  on  earth  and  bake  it  in  the  oven  if  that  were  the  only 
food  I  could  give  him.  What  am  I  doing  this  for  ?  Ah,  I  see. 
I  am  hanging  about  this  fictitious  emotion  simply  because  I 
do  not  wish  to  go  on  and  remember  Roger."  She  held  out  her 
hands  into  the  blackness  and  cried  out,  "Oh,  Roger,  forgive  me 
for  shutting  you  out  of  my  memory  as  I  have  shut  you  out  of 
everything  else.  I  will  remember  everything,  I  will !"  She  lay 
down  and  let  all  pictures  reappear  before  her  eyes,  but  her 
mouth  was  drawn  down  at  the  corners. 


CHAPTER  V 

IT  was  no  use  wondering  now  whether  or  not  Peacey  had 
really  murmured  "Good  day,  ma'am,"  as  they  parted  at  the 
door  of  the  church  after  their  furtive  marriage.  She  had  cer- 
tainly thought  she  had  heard  this  ironic  respectfulness,  and 
she  had  stared  after  him  with  a  sudden  dread  that  under  the 
cream  of  benignity  there  might  after  all  be  a  ferment  of  malign 
intention.  But  that  gait,  which  was  so  light  and  brisk  for  such 
a  heavy  man,  had  already  taken  him  some  distance  from  her, 
and  he  was  now  entering  the  yew  alley  that  was  the  private 
way  from  Torque  Hall  to  the  churchyard.  The  sunlight  fall- 
ing through  the  interstices  of  the  dark  mossy  trees  cast  liver- 
coloured  patches  on  his  black  coat.  She  had  turned  and  looked 
down,  as  she  always  did  when  human  complexities  made  her 
seek  reassurance  as  to  the  worth  of  this  world,  on  the  shiny 
mud-flats,  blue-veined  with  the  running  tides,  and  green 
marshes  where  the  redshanks  choired.  Her  misgiving  had 
weakened  at  that  beauty,  for  with  the  logic  of  the  young  she 
thought  that  if  the  universe  was  infinitely  good  it  could  not 
also  be  infinitely  evil,  and  it  had  been  utterly  dispelled  by  his 
considerate  conduct  during  the  following  weeks. 

He  did  not  try  to  see  her  at  all  until  a  day  or  two  before  the 
birth  of  her  child  was  expected.  Then  he  came  at  twilight. 
He  would  not  let  Grandmother  put  a  match  to  the  lamp  in  the 
parlour,  and  Marion  knew  from  his  quiet  urgency  that  he  was 
doing  this  so  that  she  might  continue  to  wear  the  dusk  as  a 
cloak.  He  sat  down  by  the  window,  his  shoulders  black  against 
the  sunset,  and  his  fat  hands,  with  their  appealing  air  of  shame 
at  their  own  fatness,  laid  on  the  little  table  beside  him  an  old 
carved  coral  rattle  and  a  baby's  dress  precious  with  embroid- 
eries. These  he  had  bought,  he  said,  up  in  London,  where  he 
had  had  to  go  for  a  day  to  do  business  with  the  wine  merchants. 
He  had  not  seemed  to  listen  to  her  thanks.  But  his  hunched 
shape  against  the  primrose  light  and  the  gleaming  of  his  thick 
white  fingers  playing  nervously  with  the  fragile  gifts  spoke- 

321 


322  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  a  passionate  concern  for  her.  No  doubt  that  concern  was 
sincere.  They  told  her  after  her  confinement  that  during  the 
day  and  night  through  which  her  child  was  slowly  torn  from 
her  he  had  not  left  the  house,  and  at  her  cries  a  sweat  had  run 
down  his  face.  That  was  not  unnatural.  An  incomplete  vil- 
lainy would  vex  its  designer  as  any  unfinished  work  of  art 
vexes  the  artist.  But  she  interpreted  it  in  the  sense  that  he, 
knowing  what  delusions  youth  has  regarding  the  human  ca- 
pacity for  love,  had  foreseen  that  she  would. 

She  let  him  see  her  before  anyone  else,  and  he  had  made 
the  most  of  that  ideal  occasion  when  her  being  was  so  sensi- 
tive that  it  responded  to  everything,  and  so  well  pleased  at 
having  safely  borne  her  son  that  she  saw  everything  as  evi- 
dence of  creation's  virtue.  He  had  added  stroke  to  stroke  with 
the  modest  confused  smile  with  which  he  entered  the  room,  as 
if  he  felt  his  vast  bulk  ridiculous  in  this  room  of  small  rose- 
bud patterns;  the  uneasy  laughter  with  which  he  disguised  his 
embarrassment  when  they  could  find  no  chair  big  enough  for 
him;  the  shy  wonder  with  which  he  put  out  his  hand  and 
hooded  the  tiny  black  head  with  it,  and  uncurled  the  little 
hand  with  his  obese  forefinger;  the  reticence  with  which  he 
checked  his  remark  that  he  had  always  wanted  to  have  a  child 
of  his  own.  And  he  perfected  the  picture  that  he  desired  her 
to  see  by  the  assurance  he  gave  murmurously  from  the  dark- 
ness of  the  open  door.  "Get  well  soon.  .  .  .  You  needn't  be 
afraid  of  me.  We  made  a  bargain.  I  mean  to  stick  to  it." 
He  had  caught  the  very  tune  that  dogged  sincerity  plays  on 
the  voice's  chords.  She  lay  happy  after  he  had  gone  because 
she  and  her  child  had  so  true  a  friend. 

It  was,  of  course,  from  no  malice  against  her  that  he  set  out 
to  deceive  her,  but  from  the  natural  desire  to  protect  his  being 
from  alterations  hostile  to  its  quality.  Long  after,  sitting  with 
Richard  in  a  cafe  in  Rio  de  Janeiro,  she  had  looked  at  the 
men  who  were  taking  the  lovely  painted  women  to  themselves, 
and  she  detected  behind  the  gross  mask  that  the  prospect  of 
physical  enjoyment  set  on  the  faces  an  expression  of  harsh 
spiritual  defensiveness ;  and  thenceforward  she  had  under- 
stood why  Peacey  had  practised  this  fraud  on  her.  He  had 
known,  as  all  men  know,  that  there  is  a  beneficent  magic  in 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  323 

the  relationship  between  men  and  women;  the  evil  man,  at 
war  with  all  but  himself,  cannot  but  admit  that  for  his  su- 
premest  pleasure  he  depends  on  one  other  than  himself,  and  by 
his  gratitude  to  her  is  tainted  with  altruism  and  is  no  longer 
single-minded  in  his  war  on  others.  Such  men  uphold  prosti- 
tution because  it  exorcises  sex  of  that  magic.  It. is  not  a 
device  to  save  sensuality,  for  love  with  a  stranger  is  like  gulp- 
ing new  spirit,  and  love  with  a  friend  is  drinking  old  wine. 
Its  purpose  is  indeed  this  very  imperfection  of  the  embraces 
that  it  offers,  for  they  leave  the  soul  as  it  was. 

Peacey,  she  understood  in  the  light  of  this  discovery,  had 
desired  her  with  a  passion  that,  uncircumvented,  would  have 
swept  him  on  to  love  and  a  life  on  which  his  laboriously  ac- 
quired technique  of  villainy  would  have  been  wasted,  so  it  had 
been  the  problem  set  his  virtuosity  to  create  a  situation  which 
would  let  him  fulfil  his  body's  hunger  for  her  and  at  the  same 
time  kill  for  ever  all  possibility  of  love  between  them.  She 
could  imagine  him  seated  under  the  little  window  in  the  but- 
ler's pantry,  polishing  a  silver  teapot  with  paste  and  his  own 
fingers,  as  old-fashioned  butlers  do,  for  he  was  scrupulous  in 
all  matters  of  craftsmanship;  holding  his  fat  face  obliquely,  so 
that  it  seemed  as  unrelated  to  anything  but  space  as  a  riding 
moon,  save  when  he  looked  down  and  smiled  to  see  the  blue 
square  of  the  window  and  the  elm  top  shine  upside  down  and 
distorted  in  the  bulbous  silver :  thinking  his  solution  out  to  its 
perfect  issue. 

It  had  been  quite  perfect.  By  that  visit,  and  by  his  absten- 
tion from  any  later  visit,  he  had  induced  in  her  just  that  mood 
of  serenity  and  confidence  which  would  be  most  shocked  by  the 
irruption  of  his  passion.  The  evening  when  it  all  happened 
she  had  been  so  utterly  given  up  to  happiness.  She  had  taken 
the  most  preposterously  long  time  to  put  Richard  to  bed.  He 
had  had  a  restless  day,  and  had  been  so  drowsy  when  she  went 
to  feed  him  in  the  evening  that  she  had  put  him  back  in  his 
cradle  in  his  day  clothes,  but  about  half-past  eight  he  had 
awakened  and  called  her,  and  she  found  him  very  lively  and 
roguish.  She  had  stripped  him  and  then  could  not  bear  to 
put  his  night-clothes  on,  he  looked  so  lovely  lying  naked  in  her 
lap.  He  was  not  one  of  those  babies  who  are  pieces  of  flesh 


324  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

that  slowly  acquire  animation  by  feeding  and  sleeping;  from 
his  birth  he  had  seemed  to  be  charged  with  the  whole  vitality 
of  a  man.  He  was  minute  as  a  baby  of  three  months  is,  he 
was  helpless,  he  had  not  yet  made  the  amazing  discovery  that 
his  hand  belonged  to  him,  but  she  knew  that  when  she  held 
him  she  held  a  strong  man.  This  babyhood  was  the  playful 
disguise  in  which  he  came  into  the  world  in  order  that  they 
might  get  on  easy  terms  with  one  another  and  be  perfect  com- 
panions. Never  would  he  be  able  to  feel  tyrannous  because 
of  his  greater  strength,  for  he  would  remember  the  time  when 
she  had  lifted  him  in  her  weak  arms,  and  that  same  memory 
would  prevent  her  from  ever  being  depressed  into  a  sense  of 
inferiority,  so  that  they  would  ever  move  in  the  happy  climate 
of  a  sense  of  equality.  And  every  moment  of  this  journey 
towards  that  perfect  relationship  was  going  to  be  a  delight. 

She  bent  over  him,  enravished  by  the  brilliant  bloom  of  his 
creamy  skin  and  the  black  blaze  of  his  eyes,  which  had  been 
black  from  birth,  as  hardly  any  children's  are;  turned  him 
over  and  kissed  the  delicate  crook  of  his  knees  and  the  straight 
column  of  his  spine  and  the  little  square  wings  of  his  shoul- 
der-blades, and  then  she  turned  him  back  again  and  jeered  at 
him  because  he  wore  the  phlegmatic,  pasha-like  smile  of  an 
adored  baby.  She  became  vexed  with  love  for  him,  and  longed 
to  clasp  him,  to  crush  him  as  she  knew  she  must  not.  She  put 
on  his  night-clothes,  kissing  him  extravagantly  and  unsatedly, 
and  when  she  finished  he  wailed  and  nuzzled  to  her  breast. 
"Oh,  no,  you  greedy  little  thing,"  she  cried,  for  it  was  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  he  should  have  been  fed  again,  but  a  wave 
of  love  passed  through  her  and  she  took  him  to  her.  They 
were  fused,  they  were  utterly  content  with  one  another.  He 
finished,  smacking  his  lips  like  an  old  epicure.  "Oh,  my  darl- 
ing love!"  she  cried,  and  put  him  back  into  the  cot  and  ran 
downstairs.  If  she  stayed  longer  she  would  keep  him  awake 
with  her  kisses  and  play.  She  was  brightened  and  full  of 
silent  laughter,  like  a  girl  who  escapes  from  her  sweetheart. 

Grandmother  sat  very  quietly  at  her  sewing  and  soon  went 
upstairs.  Grandmother  was  getting  very  old.  When  she  said 
"Good-night"  she  seemed  to  be  speaking  out  of  the  cavern  of 
some  preoccupation,  and  when  she  went  upstairs  her  shawl  fell 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  325 

from  her  shoulders  and  trailed  its  corner  on  the  ground.  Mar- 
ion hoped  that  the  old  lady  had  not  worn  herself  out  by  wor- 
rying about  her,  and  she  pulled  out  the  sewing  that  had  been 
shut  up  in  the  work-basket  and  meditated  finishing  it,  but  she 
was  too  tired.  Nowadays  she  knew  a  fatigue  which  she  could 
yield  to  frankly,  as  it  was  honourable  to  her  organism,  and 
meant  that  her  strength  was  going  into  her  milk  and  not  into 
her  blood.  She  folded  her  arms  on  the  table  and  laid  her  head 
on  them  and  thought  of  Richard.  It  was  his  monthly  birthday 
to-day.  He  was  three  months  old.  She  grieved  to  think  that 
she  could  feed  him  for  only  six  months  more.  How  could  she 
endure  to  be  quite  separate  from  him?  Sometimes  even  now 
she  regretted  that  the  time  had  gone  when  he  was  within  her, 
so  that  each  of  her  heartbeats  was  a  caress  to  him,  to  which  his 
little  heart  replied,  and  she  would  feel  utterly  desolate  and 
hungry  when  she  could  no  longer  join  him  to  her  bosom.  But 
she  would  always  be  able  to  kiss  him.  She  imagined  herself 
a  few  years  ahead,  calling  him  back  when  he  was  running  off 
to  play,  holding  his  resistant  sturdiness  in  her  arms  while  he 
gave  her  hasty,  smudged  kisses  and  hugged  his  ball  for  more 
loving.  But  she  reflected  that,  while  the  character  of  those 
kisses  would  amuse  her,  they  would  not  satisfy  her  craving 
for  contact  so  close  that  it  was  unity  with  his  warm  young 
body,  and  she  must  set  herself  to  be  the  most  alluring  mother 
that  ever  lived,  so  that  he  would  not  struggle  in  her  arms  but 
would  give  her  back  kiss  for  kiss.  She  flung  her  head  back, 
sighing  triumphantly  because  she  knew  she  could  do  it,  but 
as  her  eyes  met  her  image  in  the  mirror  over  the  mantelpiece 
she  was  horrified  to  see  how  little  like  a  mother  she  was  look- 
ing. Lips  pursed  with  these  long  imaginary  kisses  were  too 
oppressive  for  a  child's  mouth ;  she  had  lost  utterly  that  sacred, 
radiating  lethargy  which  hushes  a  house  so  that  a  child  may 
sleep :  on  a  child's  path  her  emanations  were  beginning  to  cast 
not  light  but  lightning. 

She  called  out  to  herself :  "You  fool !  If  you  really  love 
Richard  you  will  let  him  run  out  to  his  game  when  he  wants 
to,  that  he  shall  grow  strong  and  victorious,  and  if  you  call 
him  back  it  must  be  to  give  him  an  orange  and  not  a  kiss!" 
But  it  seemed  to  her  that  this  would  be  a  sacrifice  until,  staring 


326  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

into  the  glass,  she  noticed  that  she  was  now  more  beautiful 
than  she  had  ever  been,  and  then  she  saw  the  way  by  which 
she  could  be  satisfied.  Harry  must  come  back;  she  knew  he 
was  coming  back,  for  they  had  intercepted  his  letter  to  her, 
and  they  would  not  have  done  that  if  it  had  been  unloving. 
After  she  had  weaned  Richard  she  must  conceive  again  and 
let  another  child  lift  from  him  the  excessive  burden  of  her 
love :  then  her  mind  and  soul  could  go  on  in  his  company  with- 
out vexing  him  with  these  demands  that  only  the  unborn  or  the 
nursling  could  satisfy.  Then  this  second  child  would  become 
separate  from  her,  and  she  must  conceive  again  and  again  until 
this  intense  life  of  the  body  failed  in  her  and  her  flesh  ceased 
to  be  a  powerful  artist  exulting  in  the  creation  of  masterpieces. 
It  must  be  so.  For  Richard's  sake  it  must  be  so.  Her  love 
would  be  too  heavy  a  cloak  for  one  child,  for  it  was  meant  to 
be  a  tent  under  which  many  should  dwell.  Again  as  in  the 
wood  she  laid  her  hand  on  her  body  and  felt  it  as  an  inex- 
haustible treasure.  Again  she  was  instantly  mocked. 

There  had  come,  then,  a  knock  at  the  door.  She  had  felt 
a  little  frightened,  for  since  her  stoning  in  Roothing  High 
Street  she  had  felt  fear  at  any  contact  with  the  external  world ; 
she  knew  now  that  rabies  is  endemic  in  human  society,  and 
that  one  can  never  tell  when  one  may  not  be  bitten  by  a  froth- 
ing mouth.  But  it  was  not  late,  and  it  was  as  likely  as  not  that 
this  was  Cousin  Tom  Stallybrass  come  to  say  how  the  Frisian 
calf  had  sold  at  Prittlebay  market,  so  she  opened  it  at  once. 

Peacey  stood  there.  He  stood  quite  still,  his  face  held 
obliquely,  his  body  stiff  and  jointless  in  his  clothes,  like  a  huge, 
fat  doll.  There  was  an  appearance  of  ceremony  about  him. 
His  skin  shone  with  the  white  lacquer  of  a  recent  washing  with 
coarse  soap,  he  was  dressed  very  neatly  in  his  Sunday  broad- 
cloth, and  he  wore  a  black-and-white  check  tie  which  she  had 
never  seen  him  wear  before,  and  his  fingers  looked  like  var- 
nished bulging  pods  in  tight  black  kid  gloves. 

He  did  not  speak.  He  did  not  answer  her  reluctant  invita- 
tion that  he  should  enter.  She  would  have  thought  him  drunk 
had  not  the  smell  that  clung  about  him  been  so  definitely  that 
of  soap.  From  the  garden  behind  him,  which  was  quilted  by  a 
thick  night  fog,  noises  as  of  roosting  birds  disturbed.  His 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  327 

head  turned  on  the  thick  hill  of  his  neck,  his  lids,  with  their 
fringe  of  long  but  sparse  black  lashes,  blinked  once  or  twice. 
When  the  sound  had  passed,  his  face  again  grew  blank  and 
moonish  and  he  stepped  within.  He  laid  his  bowler  hat  on  the 
table  and  began  to  strip  off  his  gloves.  His  fleshy  fingers,  pink 
with  constriction,  terrified  her,  and  she  clapped  her  hands  at 
him  and  cried  out:  "Why  have  you  come?" 

But  he  answered  nothing.  Speech  is  human,  and  words 
might  have  fomented  some  human  relationship  between  them, 
and  he  desired  that  they  should  know  each  other  only  as  ani- 
mals and  enemies.  He  continued  to  take  off  his  gloves,  while 
round  him  fragments  of  fog  that  had  come  in  with  him  hung 
in  the  warm  air  like  his  familiar  spirits,  and  then  bent  over 
the  lamp.  She  watched  his  face  grow  yellow  in  the  diminishing 
glare,  and  moaned,  knowing  herself  weak  with  motherhood. 
Then  in  the  blackness  his  weight  threshed  down  on  her.  Even 
his  form  was  a  deceit,  for  his  vast  bulk  was  not  obesity  but 
iron-hard  strength.  All  consciousness  soon  left  her,  except 
only  pain,  and  she  wandered  in  the  dark  caverns  of  her  mind. 
Her  capacity  for  sexual  love  lay  dead  in  her.  She  saw  it  as  a 
lovely  naked  boy  lying  with  blue  lips  and  purple  blood  pouring 
from  his  side,  where  it  had  been  jagged  by  the  boar  who  still 
snuffled  the  fair  body,  sitting  by  with  its  haunches  in  a  spring. 
She  cried  out  to  herself :  "You  can  rise  above  this !  This  is 
only  a  physical  thing,"  but  her  own  answer  came:  "Yes,  but 
the  other  also  was  only  a  physical  thing.  Yet  it  was  a  sacra- 
ment and  gave  you  life.  There  is  white  magic  and  black 
magic.  This  is  a  black  sacrament,  and  it  will  give  you  death." 
Her  soul  fainted  into  utter  nothingness. 

She  woke  and  heard  Richard  crying  for  her  upstairs.  She 
dragged  herself  up  at  once,  but  remembered  and  fell  grovelling 
on  the  floor  and  wept.  But  Richard  continued  to  call  for  her, 
and  she  struggled  to  her  feet  and  made  her  way  up  the  stairs, 
clinging  to  the  banisters.  She  looked  over  her  shoulder  at  the 
loathed  room  and  was  amazed  to  see  that  this  mawkish  early 
morning  light  showed  it  much  tidier  than  it  had  been  by  the 
glow  of  the  lamp  the  night  before.  It  was  evident  that  Peacey 
had  set  it  in  order  before  he  let  himself  out,  and  had  even 
neatly  folded  the  sewing  she  had  left  crumpled  on  the  table. 


328  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

At  this  manifestation  of  his  peculiar  quality  she  flung  her  arm 
across  her  face  and  fled  to  her  son's  room.  But  when  she  got 
there  a  sense  of  guilt  overcame  her  and  she  was  ashamed  to 
go  to  him,  though  she  knew  he  needed  her,  and  staggered  first 
to  the  window  to  look  out  at  the  sea  and  the  shining  plain, 
whose  beauty  had  through  all  previous  agonies  reassured  her. 
But  the  eastern  sky  was  inflamed  with  such  a  livid  scarlet  dawn 
as  she  had  never  seen  before,  and  the  full  tide  was  milk  streaked 
with  blood,  and  the  sails  of  the  barges  that  rode  there  were  as 
rags  that  had  been  used  to  staunch  wounds.  Unreasonably  she 
took  this  as  confirmation  that  there  had  happened  to  her  one 
of  earth's  ultimate  evils,  a  thing  that  no  thinking  on  could 
make  good.  But  turning  to  her  child  to  still  his  crying,  she 
saw  the  tiny  exquisite  hands  waving  in  rage  and  the  dark  down 
rumpled  on  the  monkeyish  little  skull,  and  the  black  eyes  in 
which  all  the  beauty  and  high  temper  that  were  afterwards  to 
be  Richard  were  condensed,  and  she  ran  to  him.  She  caught 
him  up  in  her  arms  and  laughed  into  the  criminal  face  of  the 
morning. 

From  that  day  on  Marion  and  Richard  lived  together  in  the 
completest  isolation.  She  had  meals  with  her  family,  she 
moved  among  them  doing  what  part  of  the  household  and  dairy 
work  that  she  had  always  done,  but  she  never  spoke  to  them 
unless  it  was  necessary ;  for  she  realised  now  why  Grandmother 
had  been  so  preoccupied  that  she  let  the  tail  of  her  shawl  trail 
on  the  ground  as  she  went  upstairs  that  night,  and  why  Cousin 
Tom  Stallybrass  had  not  come  in  to  tell  how  the  calf  had  gone 
at  Prittlebay  market.  When  one  afternoon  she  came  to  the 
head  of  the  stairs  and  saw  Aunt  Alphonsine  gesticulating  in  her 
tight  dame  de  compagnie  black  in  the  parlour  below,  stretching 
out  her  long  lean  neck  like  the  spout  of  a  coffee-pot  to  Grand- 
mothers' ear,  she  stood  quite  still,  staring  at  the  two  women 
and  hating  them  till  they  saw  her  and  fell  silent.  She  did  not 
take  her  gaze  from  them  until  Aunt  Alphonsine  put  up  her 
hand  to  cover  her  scar.  Then  she  knew  that  this  wretched 
woman  was  at  last  afraid  of  her  and  would  let  her  alone,  and 
she  turned  contentedly  to  the  room  where  Richard  was. 

But  later  on  a  misgiving  seized  her  lest  her  aunt  might  have 
come  as  envoy  from  Peacey,  and  since  she  perceived  that,  her 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  329 

rage  against  the  world  was  so  visibly  written  on  her  that  she 
inspired  fear;  she  thought  it  best  to  give  her  boy  into  the 
charge  of  Peggy  and  to  go  over  to  Torque  Hall  herself.  She 
waited  in  the  courtyard  outside  the  servants'  quarters  while 
they  fetched  him,  and  stood  with  her  head  high,  so  that  the 
faces  peering  at  her  from  the  windows  should  see  nothing  of 
her  torment,  at  the  corner  of  the  gardens  that  was  visible 
through  the  gracious  Tudor  archway.  There  was  nothing 
showing  save  a  few  pale  mauve  clots  of  Michaelmas  daisies 
standing  flank-high  in  the  slanting  dusty  shafts  of  evening 
sunshine,  and  the  marble  Triton,  glowing  gold  in  answer  to 
the  sunset,  with  gold  autumn  leaves  scattered  on  his  pedestal. 
But  she  knew  very  well  how  fair  it  all  must  be  beyond,  where 
she  could  not  see — the  broad  grass  walk  stretching  between 
the  wide,  formal  flowerbeds,  well  tended  but  disordered  with 
the  lateness  of  the  year,  to  the  sundial  and  the  chestnut  grove. 
How  could  Harry,  who  had  loved  her,  possess  all  this  and  not 
want  to  share  it  with  her  ?  She  could  have  sobbed  like  a  child 
whose  playmate  is  not  kind,  had  not  Peacey  stood  at  her  el- 
bow. "I  want  to  give  you  warning  that  if  ever  you  come  near 
me  again  I  will  kill  you,"  she  said.  He  looked  sharply  at  her 
and  she  saw  that  he  was  convinced  and  discomfited.  But  sud- 
denly he  smiled.  She  went  home,  wondering  uneasily  why  he 
should  have  smiled,  but  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was 
simply  one  of  his  mystifications  and  that  he  had  simply  been 
trying  to  cover  his  defeat.  It  was  an  extraordinary  fact  that 
there  never  once  occurred  to  her  that  possibility,  the  thought 
of  which,  she  afterwards  realised,  had  made  Peacey  smile.  The 
truth  was  that  she  never  thought  directly  of  that  night's  hor- 
ror, but,  perhaps  because  of  that  fantasy  about  the  wounded 
youth  which  had  vexed  her  delirium,  she  always  disguised  it 
in  her  mind  as  an  encounter  with  a  wild  beast,  and  the  expec- 
tation of  human  issue  no  more  troubled  her  than  it  would  a 
woman  who  had  been  gored  by  a  boar. 

It  was  partly  for  this  reason,  and  partly  because  of  a  certain 
ominous  peculiarity  of  her  physical  condition,  that  she  did  not 
know  for  some  months  that  she  was  going  to  have  Peacey's 
child.  It  was  indeed  a  rainy  December  morning  when  she 
heard  a  knock  at  the  door  and  knew  it  was  little  Jack  Harken, 


330  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

because  he  was  whistling  "Good  King  Wenceslas,"  as  he  al- 
ways did,  and  would  not  go  to  answer  him,  although  she  knew 
Grandmother  and  Peggy  were  both  in  the  dairy,  because  she 
was  distraught  with  her  own  degradation.  Her  encounter  with 
Peacey  had  been  like  being  shown  some  picture  from  a  foul 
book  and  being'obliged  to  stare  at  it  till  it  was  branded  on  her 
mind,  so  that  whenever  she  looked  at  it  she  saw  it  also,  stamped 
on  the  real  image  like  the  superscription  on  a  palimpsest.  But 
now  she  felt  as  if  she  herself  had  become  a  picture  in  a  foul 
book.  And  she  was  quite  insane  with  a  sense  of  guilt  towards 
Richard.  This  discovery  had,  of  necessity,  meant  that  she 
must  wean  him,  and  her  obsession  interpreted  their  conflict 
between  them  that  had  naturally  followed  as  a  wrangle  be- 
tween them  as  to  her  responsibility  for  this  evil.  Now  he  was 
lying  in  his  cot  screaming  with  rage,  his  clean  frock  and  the 
sheets  running  with  the  rivulets  of  milk  that  he  had  spat  out 
and  struck  from  the  teat  of  the  bottle  she  was  forcing  on  him, 
and  she  was  sobbing,  for  this  sort  of  thing  had  been  going  on 
for  days,  "I  can't  help  it,  darling,  I  can't  help  it." 

Then  Jackie  began  to  thump  rhythmically  on  the  door  be- 
low, and  she  ran  down,  maddened  with  so  much  noise,  and 
snatched  the  letter  he  held  out  to  her.  At  the  writing  on  the 
envelope  her  heart  stood  still.  She  recanted  all  she  had  lately 
thought  of  Harry.  Hatred  and  resentment  fell  from  her.  The 
promise  of  her  lover's  near  presence  came  on  her  like  a  south 
wind  blowing  over  flowers.  At  his  message  that  he  was  wait- 
ing for  her  on  the  marshes  under  the  hillside  she  remembered 
what  love  is — a  shelter,  a  wing,  a  witty  clemency  that  finds 
the  perfect  unguent  for  its  mate's  hurt  as  easily  as  a  wit  finds 
jests,  a  tender  alchemy  that  changes  the  dark  evil  subsistence 
of  the  universe  to  bright,  valuable  gold.  In  her  light  shoes, 
and  with  her  black  hair  loose  about  her  shoulders,  she  ran  out 
into  the  rainy  yard,  fled  round  the  house  quickly  so  that  none 
might  see  her  and  spy  on  them,  and  plunged  down  the  thaw- 
wet  hillside,  crying  out  with  joy,  even  when  she  slipped  and 
fell,  because  her  lover's  arms  would  so  soon  be  round  her. 

She  was  amazed,  for  she  had  not  yet  had  leisure  or  the  heart 
to  look  out  of  the  window,  that  beneath  her  the  marshes 
crackled  white  with  sunlit  snow,  and  a  blue  sea  stretched  to 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  331 

the  rosy  horizon  that  girdles  bright  frosty  days.  Even  as  this 
beauty  had  lain  unseen  under  her  windows,  so  had  her  happi- 
ness waited  unsuspected.  She  did  not  see  him  till  she  was 
close  upon  him,  for  he  was  striding  up  and  down  between  the 
last  two  trees  of  the  elm  hedge.  Her  heart  ached  when  she 
saw  him  standing,  brilliantly  lovely  as  the  glistening  snow- 
laden  branches  above  him,  for  it  was  plain  from  the  confident 
set  of  his  shoulders  and  the  loose  grip  of  his  hand  on  his  stick 
that  he  was  unaware  that  any  situation  existed  which  was  not 
easily  negotiable.  They  had  evidently  told  him  nothing  at 
Torque  Hall  to  destroy  the  impression  she  must  have  created 
by  her  last  letter  to  him  in  which  she  had  described  her  ac- 
ceptance of  Peacey's  offer  of  a  formal  marriage.  They  had 
not  dared,  for  they  knew  how  terrible  he  would  be  when  he 
moved  to  avenge  her.  But  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  ran  to  her 
and  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  did  not  cease  to  kiss  her  till 
she  sobbed  out  what  they  had  done  to  her.  Then  it  was  as 
if  a  wind  had  blown  and  the  snow  had  fallen  from  the  branches, 
leaving  them  but  dark,  gnarled  wood. 

"But  why  did  you  marry  him?" 

"The  people  stoned  me  in  the  street  and  I  could  get  no  peace 
at  home." 

"Couldn't  you  have  tried  to  stand 'it?" 

"I  was  afraid  for  the  boy." 

"Then  why  couldn't  you  have  gone  away?" 

"How  could  I  when  I  was  so  ill?  Why  did  not  you  come 
back?" 

"How  could  I  leave  the  prince  and  princess?" 

She  was  aghast  to  find  them  quarrelling,  and  while  he  drew 
a  shuddering  breath  between  his  teeth,  she  interrupted:  "Oh, 
Richard  is  so  lovely!  You  must  see  him  soon.  Oh,  such  a 
boy!" 

But  he  had  paid  no  heed  and  shakingly  poured  out  words 
since  it  was  so  like  the  harmless  spite  of  a  child  that  beats 
young  to  old,  her  blood  from  that  of  a  loved  girl  to  a  hating 
woman.  He  found  the  situation,  she  had  thought  at  the  time, 
and  still  thought  after  thirty  years,  far  less  negotiable  than  a 
high  love  would  have  done.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he 
might  take  her  away.  He  took  it  for  granted  tnat  thereafter 


332  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

they  must  be  lost  to  each  other.  But  save  for  his  desire  to 
blame  her  for  these  mischances,  which  did  not  offend  her, 
since  it  was  so  like  the  harmless  spite  of  a  child  that  beats 
his  racquet  because  it  has  sent  his  ball  into  the  next  garden, 
he  seemed  not  to  be  thinking  of  her  part  in  that  loss  at  all.  It 
was  his  extreme  sense  of  his  own  loss  that  was  making  him 
choke  with  tears.  It  appeared  that  love  was  not  always  a  shel- 
ter, a  wing,  a  witty  clemency,  a  tender  alchemy.  She  stood 
half  asleep  with  shock  until  a  sentence,  said  passionately  in 
his  delightful  voice  which  made  one  see  green  water  running 
swiftly,  and  at  first  refused  admission  to  her  mind  by  her  in- 
credulous love,  confirmed  itself  by  reiteration.  "Damn  it  all," 
he  was  saying,  "you  were  unique!  At  that  she  cried  out, 
"Oh,  you  are  Peacey  too!  I  will  go  back  to  Richard,"  and 
turned  and  stumbled  up  the  wet  hillside. 

It  is  true  that  Harry's  desertion  nearly  killed  her — that  there 
was  a  moment,  as  she  breasted  the  hill-top  and  found  herself 
facing  the  malevolent  red  house  where  they  had  always  told 
her  that  he  did  not  really  love  her,  when  she  thought  she  was 
about  to  fall  dead  from  excess  of  experience  and  would  have 
chosen  to  die  so,  if  Richard  had  not  waited  for  her.  Yet  it 
was  also  true  that  for  long  she  hardly  ever  thought  of  Harry. 
Such  fierce  and  unimagined  passions  and  perplexities  now  filled 
her,  that  the  simple  and  normal  emotions  she  felt  for  him  be- 
came imperceptible,  like  tapers  in  strong  sunlight. 

The  day  after  their  meeting  she  had  found  Aunt  Alphonsine 
all  a  dry  frightened  gibber,  holding  a  whitefaced  conference 
with  Grandmother  in  the  parlour,  and  they  had  asked  her  if 
she  had  known  that  Peacey  had  left  Torque  Hall  that  morning. 
She  had  shaken  her  head  and  given  a  dry-mouthed  smile,  for 
she  saw  how  terrified  they  were  lest  all  that  had  had  a  hand 
in  her  marriage  were  to  be  made  to  pay  for  it;  but  because 
the  child  in  her  arms  laughed,  and  the  child  in  her  womb  had 
moved,  she  was  so  torn  between  delight  and  loathing  that  she 
had  no  time  to  speculate  whether  Harry  had  done  this  thing 
sweetly  out  of  love  for  her  or  cruelly  out  of  bodily  jealousy 
of  Peacey.  Nor,  when  a  few  weeks  later  it  was  announced  that 
for  the  first  time  in  its  history  Torque  Hall  had  been  let  fur- 
nished, and  that  the  family  was  going  to  spend  the  next  twelve 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  333 

months  abroad  and  in  London,  did  her  heart  ache  to  think  he 
must  be  sad  to  leave  the  grey,  salt  Essex  which  he  loved.  She 
thought  of  it,  indeed,  but  negligently.  She  could  imagine  well 
how  he  had  walked  with  his  dogs  among  the  dripping  woods 
and  had  set  his  face  against  a  tree-trunk  near  some  remembered 
place,  and  had  wept  (for  like  most  very  virile  men,  he  wepi 
in  sorrow)  ;  and  when  he  had  gone  home,  thick-lipped  and 
darkly  flushed  with  misery,  he  had  flung  down  his  stick  on  the 
chest  in  the  hall  and  muttered,  while  frightened  people  watched 
from  the  shadows  of  the  armour  or  listened  at  doors  held  ajar, 
"I  must  get  out  of  this."  No  doubt  it  was  very  sad,  but  it 
was  simple ;  it  was  brother  to  the  grief  of  the  yard  dog  when 
she  lost  her  puppies.  It  was  not  like  her  agony.  Nothing  was 
simple  there.  Destiny  had  struck  her  being  a  blow  that  had 
shivered  it  to  fragments,  and  now  all  warred  so  that  there  was 
confusion,  and  the  best  things  were  bad. 

Her  body  was  full  of  health  and  she  was  very  beautiful. 
Richard,  who  was  beginning  to  take  notice,  took  great  pleasure 
in  her.  He  used  to  point  his  fingers  at  her  great  lustrous  eyes 
as  he  did  at  flowers,  and  he  would  roll  his  face  against  the 
smooth  skin  of  her  neck  and  shoulders ;  and  when  he  was 
naked  after  his  bath  he  liked  her  to  let  down  her  hair  so  that 
it  hung  round  him  like  a  dark,  scented  tent.  But  as  she  bent 
forward,  watching  his  little  red  gums  shine  in  his  laughing 
mouth,  guilt  constricted  her  heart.  For  she  knew  that  no 
woman  who  was  going  to  have  a  child  had  any  right  to  be  as 
well  as  she  was.  She  knew  that  it  meant  that  she  was  giving 
nothing  to  the  child,  that  the  blood  was  bright  in  her  cheeks 
because  she  was  denying  every  drop  she  could  to  the  child,  that 
her  flesh  was  nice  for  Richard  to  kiss  because  she  was  electric 
with  the  force  she  should  have  spent  in  making  nerves  for  the 
child.  She  knew  that  she  was  trying  to  kill  the  thing  to  which 
she  had  been  ordered  to  give  life;  that  the  murder  was  being 
committed  by  a  part  of  her  which  was  beyond  the  control  of 
her  will  did  not  exonerate  her.  In  these  matters,  as  she  had 
learned  in  the  moment  when  she  had  discovered  that  her  baby 
had  conceived  without  the  consent  of  her  soul,  the  soul  can- 
not with  honour  disown  the  doings  of  the  body.  The  plain 
fact  was  that  she  was  going  to  have  a  child,  and  that  she  was 


334  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

trying  to  kill  it.  Remorse  dragged  behind  her  like  a  brake  on 
the  swift  movements  of  her  happy  motherhood;  and  at  night 
she  lay  wide-eyed  and  whispered  to  some  judge  to  judge  her 
and  bring  this  matter  to  an  end. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  even  when  a  solicitor  came  to  see 
her  and  told  her  that  Harry  had  settled  on  her  and  Richard  a 
sum  so  large  that  she  knew  he  must  be  deeply  concerned  for 
her,  since,  like  many  men  of  his  type,  he  had  such  an  abundant 
sense  of  the  pleasures  which  can  be  bought  with  money  that 
to  part  with  it  unnecessarily  was  a  real  sacrifice,  she  thought 
of  him  with  only  such  casual  pity  as  she  had  felt  when  the 
yard-dog  howled.  Well,  that  had  all  been  set  right,  long  after- 
wards on  that  day  of  which  she  had  told  nobody. 

But  she  had  cheered  herself  in  all  those  nights  that  she  would 
make  up  for  her  body's  defection  by  loving  the  child  very  much 
when  it  was  born.  She  knew  she  would  have  no  passion  for 
it  as  she  had  for  Richard,  but  she  foresaw  herself  being  con- 
sciously and  slantingly  tender  over  it,  like  a  primitive  Madonna 
over  the  Holy  Child.  There  was,  of  course,  no  such  solution  of 
the  problem.  It  became  plain  that  there  was  not  going  to  be  in 
that  hour  when  she  knew  the  unnatural  horror  of  a  painless 
parturition.  She  had  not  been  at  all  shocked  by  the  violence 
she  had  endured  at  Richard's  birth.  It  had  seemed  magnifi- 
cently consistent  with  the  rest  of  nature,  and  she  had  been 
comforted  as  she  lay  moaning  by  a  persistent  vision  of  a  har- 
row turning  up  rich  earth.  But  contemplating  herself  as  she 
performed  this  act  of  childbirth  without  a  pang  was  like  look- 
ing into  eyes  which  are  open  but  have  no  sight  and  realising 
that  here  is  blindness,  or  listening  to  one  who  earnestly  speaks 
words  which  have  no  meaning  and  realising  that  here  is  mad- 
ness. 

She  was  going  through  a  process  that  should  have  produced 
life :  but  because  of  the  lack  of  some  essence  which  works 
through  pain,  but  nevertheless  is  to  the  breeding  womb  what 
sight  is  to  the  eye  or  sanity  to  the  brain,  it  was  producing  some- 
thing that  was  as  much  at  variance  with  life  as  death.  The 
old  women  at  her  bedside  chuckled  and  rubbed  their  hands 
because  she  was  having  such  an  easy  time,  but  that  was  be- 
cause they  were  old  and  had  forgotten.  If  a  young  woman 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  335 

had  been  there  she  would  have  stood  at  the  other  side  of  the 
room  between  the  windows,  as  far  away  from  the  bed  as  she 
could,  and  her  lips  would  have  pursed,  as  if  she  felt  the  pres- 
ence of  uncleanness.  So  were  her  own,  when  they  showed 
her  the  pale  child.  She  had  indeed  done  an  unclean  and  un- 
natural thing  when  she  had  brought  forth  a  child  that  lived 
yet  was  unloved ;  who  was  born  of  a  mother  that  survived  and 
looked  at  it,  and  who  yet  had  no  mother,  since  she  felt  no 
motion  towards  it,  but  a  deep  shiver  of  her  blood  away  from 
it;  who  aroused  no  interest  in  the  whole  universe  save  her 
own  abhorrence;  who  was,  as  was  inevitable  in  one  so  be- 
gotten and  so  born,  intrinsically  disgusting  in  substance. 

"Well,  I  have  Richard  to  help  me  bear  this,"  she  said  to 
herself,  but  her  heart  reminded  her  that  though  she  had  Rich- 
ard, this  child  had  no  one.  Pitifully  she  put  out  her  arms  and 
drew  it  to  her  breast,  but  detected  for  herself  the  fundamentally 
insincere  kindness  that  a  stranger  will  show  to  a  child,  confident 
that  before  long  it  will  be  claimed  by  its  own  kin. 

She  always  remembered  how  good  the  little  thing  had  been 
as  it  lay  in  her  arms,  and  how  distasteful.  Those  were  al- 
ways to  remain  its  silent  characteristics.  It  was  so  good.  "As 
good,"  the  nurses  used  to  say,  "as  if  he  were  a  little  girl."  It 
hardly  ever  cried,  and  when  it  did  it  curiously  showed  its 
difference  from  Richard.  He  hated  being  a  baby  and  subject 
to  other  people's  wills,  and  would  lie  in  a  cot  and  roar  with 
resentment;  but  this  child,  when  it  felt  a  need  that  was  not 
satisfied,  did  not  rebel,  but  turned  its  face  to  the  pillow  and 
whined  softly.  That  was  a  strange  and  disquieting  thing  to 
watch.  She  would  stand  in  the  shadow  looking  at  the  back 
oi  its  little  head,  so  repellently  covered  with  hair  that  was  like 
fluff  off  the  floor,  and  listening  to  the  cry  that  trailed  from  its 
lips  like  a  dirty  piece  of  string ;  and  she  would  wonder  why  it 
did  this,  partly  because  she  really  wanted  to  know,  and  partly 
because  it  fended  off  the  moment  when  she  had  to  take  it  In 
her  arms.  Perhaps,  she  reflected,  it  muted  its  rage  because  it 
knew  that  it  was  unlovable  and  must  curry  favour  by  not 
troubling  people.  Indeed,  it  was  as  unlovable  as  a  child  could 
be.  It  was  not  pleasant  naked,  for  its  bones  looked  at  once 
fragile  and  coarse,  and  its  flesh  was  lax,  and  in  its  clothes  it 


336  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

was  squalid,  for  it  was  always  being  sick  or  dribbling.  Then 
her  heart  reproached  her,  and  she  admitted  that  it  cried  softly 
because  it  had  a  gentle  spirit,  and  she  would  move  forward 
quickly  and  do  what  it  desired,  using,  by  an  effort  of  will, 
those  loving  words  that  fluttered  to  her  lips  when  she  was 
tending  Richard.  Time  went  on,  but  her  attitude  to  it  never 
developed  beyond  this  alternate  recognition  of  its  hatefulness 
and  its  goodness. 

She  had  called  it  Roger  after  her  own  father  in  a  desperate 
effort  to  bring  it  into  the  family,  but  the  name,  when  she  spoke 
it,  seemed  infinitely  remote,  as  if  she  were  speaking  of  the 
child  of  some  servant  in  the  house  whom  she  had  heard  of  but 
had  never  seen.  When  he  was  out  of  her  sight,  she  ejected  the 
thought  of  him  from  her  mind,  so  that  when  her  eyes  fell  on 
him  again  it  was  a  shock.  He  did  not  become  more  seemly  to 
look  at.  Indeed,  he  was  worse  when  he  grew  out  of  frocks, 
for  knickerbockers  disclosed  that  he  had  very  thin  legs  and 
large,  knotty  knees.  He  had  a  dull  stare,  and  there  seemed  al- 
ways to  be  a  ring  of  food  round  his  mouth.  He  had  no  pride. 
When  she  took  the  children  on  a  railway  journey  Richard 
would  sit  quite  still  in  his  seat  and  would  speak  in  a  very  low 
voice,  and  if  any  of  the  other  passengers  offered  him  choco- 
lates or  sweets  he  would  draw  back  his  chin  as  an  animal  does 
when  it  is  offered  food,  and  would  shake  his  head  very  gravely. 
But  Roger  would  move  about,  falling  over  people's  legs,  and 
would  talk  perpetually  in  a  voice  that  was  given  a  whistling 
sound  by  air  that  passed  through  the  gap  between  his  two 
front  teeth,  and  when  he  got  tired  he  would  whine.  He  was 
unexclusive  and  unadventurous.  He  liked  playing  on  the 
sands  at  Prittlebay  in  summer  when  they  were  covered  with 
trippers'  children.  He  hated  Richard's  passion  for  bringing 
the  names  of  foreign  places  into  the  games.  When  Richard 
was  sitting  on  his  engine  and  roaring,  "I'm  the  Trans-Andean 
express,  and  I  don't  half  go  at  a  pace!"  Roger  would  stand 
against  the  wall  opposite  and  cry  over  and  over  again  in  that 
whistling  voice:  "Make  it  the  London,  Tilbury  and  Prittle- 
bay train!  Make  it  the  London,  Tilbury  and  Prittlebay 
train !"  When  he  felt  happy  he  would  repeatedly  jump  up  in 
the  air,  bringing  both  his  feet  down  on  the  ground  at  once,  but 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  337 

a  little  distance  apart,  so  that  his  thin  legs  looked  horrible,  and 
he  would  make  loud,  silly  noises.  At  these  times  Richard  would 
sit  with  his  back  to  him  and  would  take  no  notice.  Always  he 
was  insolent  to  the  other  child.  He  would  not  share  his  toys 
with  him,  though  sometimes  he  would  pick  out  one  of  the  best 
toys  and  give  it  to  his  brother  as  a  master  might  give  a  pres- 
ent to  a  servant.  He  was  of  the  substance  of  his  mother,  and 
he  knew  all  that  she  knew,  and  he  knew  that  this  child  was 
an  intruder. 

They  clenched  themselves  against  him.  They  were  kind  to 
him,  but  they  would  silently  scheme  to  be  alone  together.  If 
they  were  all  three  in  the  garden,  she  sitting  with  her  needle- 
work, Richard  playing  with  his  engine  and  Roger  making 
daisy-chains,  there  would  come  a  time  when  she  would  arise 
and  go  into  the  house.  She  would  not  look  at  Richard  before 
she  went,  for  in  externals  she  forced  herself  to  be  loyal  to 
Roger.  When  she  got  into  the  house  she  would  linger  about 
the  rooms  at  factitious  operations,  pouring  out  of  the  flower- 
glasses  water  that  was  not  stale,  or  putting  on  the  kettle  far 
too  soon,  until  she  heard  Richard  coming  to  look  for  her, 
light footedly  but  violently,  banging  doors  behind  him,  knock- 
ing into  furniture.  He  would  halt  at  the  door  and  stand  for 
a  moment,  twiddling  the  handle  round  and  round,  as  if  he 
had  not  really  been  so  very  keen  to  come  to  her,  and  she  would 
go  on  indifferently  with  her  occupation.  But  presently  she 
would  feel  that  she  must  steal  a  glance  at  the  face  that  she 
knew  would  be  looking  so  adorable  now,  peering  obliquely 
round  the  edge  of  the  door,  the  lips  bright  with  vitality  as  with 
wet  paint  and  the  eyes  roguish  as  if  he  felt  she  were  teasing 
life  by  enjoying  it  so,  and  the  dear  square  head,  browny-gold 
like  the  top  of  a  bun,  and  the  little  bronze  body  standing  so 
fresh  and  straight  in  the  linen  suit.  So  her  glance  would  slide 
and  slide,  and  their  eyes  would  meet  and  he  would  run  to  her. 
If  he  had  anything  on  his  conscience  he  would  choose  this 
moment  for  confession.  "Mother,  I  told  a  lie  yesterday.  But 
it  wasn't  about  anything  really  important,  so  we  won't  talk 
about  it,  will  we?" 

Then  he  would  clamber  over  her,  like  a  squirrel  going  up  a 
tree-trunk,  until  she  tumbled  into  some  big  chair  and  rated 


338  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

him  for  being  so  boisterous,  and  drew  him  close  to  her  so  that 
he  revelled  in  her  love  for  him  as  in  long  meadow-grass.  Even 
as  she  imagined  that  night  before  Peacey  came,  he  did  not 
struggle  in  her  arms  but  gave  her  kiss  for  kiss.  They  would 
be  sphered  in  joy,  until  they  heard  a  sniff  and  saw  the  other 
child  standing  at  the  open  door,  resting  its  flabby  cheek  on 
the  handle,  surveying  them  with  wild  eyes.  There  would  be  a 
moment  of  dislocation.  Then  she  would  cry,  "Come  along, 
Roger!"  and  Richard  would  slip  from  her  knee  and  the  other 
child  would  come  and  very  gratefully  put  its  arms  round  her 
neck  and  kiss  her.  It  would  go  on  kissing  and  kissing  her,  as 
if  it  needed  reassurance. 

But  she  had  always  done  her  duty  by  Roger.  That  had  not 
been  so  very  difficult  a  matter  at  first,  for  Grandmother  had 
made  a  great  fuss  of  him  and  taken  him  off  her  hands  for  most 
of  the  day.  Marion  had  never  felt  quite  at  ease  about  this,  for 
she  knew  that  he  was  receiving  nothing,  since  the  old  woman 
was  only  affecting  to  find  him  lovable  in  order  that  it  might 
seem  that  something  good  had  come  of  the  marriage  which  she 
had  engineered.  But  the  problem  was  settled  when  he  was 
eighteen  months  old,  for  then  Grandmother  died.  Marion  did 
not  feel  either  glad  or  sorry.  God  had  dreamed  her  and  her 
grandmother  in  different  dreams.  It  was  well  that  they  should 
separate.  But  it  had  the  immediate  disadvantage  of  throwing 
her  into  perpetual  contact  with  the  other  child.  She  looked 
after  it  assiduously,  but  she  always  felt  when  she  had  been 
with  it  for  an  hour  or  two  that  she  wanted  to  go  a  great  dis- 
tance and  breathe  air  that  it  had  not  breathed.  Perpetually  she 
marvelled  at  its  contentedness  and  gentleness  and  unexigent 
hunger  for  love,  and  planted  seeds  of  affection  for  it  in  her 
heart,  but  they  would  never  mature. 

The  relationship  became  still  more  galling  to  her  after  yet 
another  eighteen  months,  when  Harry  came  back  to  live  with 
his  family  at  Torque  Hall,  who  had  returned  there  the  year 
before.  No  communication  passed  between  them,  but  some- 
times by  chance  he  met  her  in  the  lanes  when  she  was  out 
with  the  children.  The  first  time  he  tried  to  speak  to  her,  but 
she  turned  away,  and  Richard  said,  "Look  here,  you  don't 
know  us,"  so  after  that  they  only  looked  at  one  another.  They 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  339 

would  walk  slowly  past  each  other  with  their  heads  bent,  and 
as  they  drew  near  she  would  lift  her  eyes  and  see  him,  beauti- 
ful and  golden  as  a  corn  of  wheat,  and  she  would  know  from 
his  eyes  that,  dark  for  his  fair,  she  was  as  beautiful,  and  they 
would  both  look  ztt  Richard,  who  ran  at  her  right  side  and 
was  as  beautiful  as  the  essence  of  both  their  beauties.  It 
seemed  as  if  a  band  of  light  joined  the  bodies  of  these  three, 
as  if  it  were  contracting  and  pulling  them  together,  as  if  in  a 
moment  they  would  be  pressed  together  and  would  dissolve  in 
loving  cries  upon  each  other's  breasts.  But  before  that  mo- 
ment came,  Harry's  eyes  would  stray  to  the  other  child.  Its 
socks  would  be  coming  down  round  its  thin  legs ;  it  would  be 
making  some  silly  noises  in  its  squalid,  whistling  voice;  its 
features  would  be  falling  apart,  unorganised  into  a  coherent 
face  by  any  expression,  as  common  children's  do.  The  sit- 
uation was  trodden  into  the  mud.  They  would  pass  on — their 
hearts  sunk  deeper  into  dingy  acquiescence  in  their  separa- 
tion. 

Nevertheless  she  did  not  fail  in  her  duty  towards  Roger. 
So  far  as  externals  went  she  was  even  a  better  mother  to  him 
than  to  Richard.  Frequently  she  lost  her  temper  with  Richard 
when  he  ran  out  of  the  house  into  the  fields  at  bedtime,  or 
when  he  would  not  leave  his  tin  soldiers  to  get  ready  for  his 
walk,  but  she  was  always  mild  with  Roger,  though  his  habit 
of  sniffing  angered  her  more  than  Richard's  worst  piece  of 
naughtiness.  She  took  Richard's  illnesses  lightly  and  sensi- 
bly. But  when  Roger  ailed — which  was  very  often,  for  he 
caught  colds  easily  and  had  a  weak  digestion — she  would  send 
for  the  doctor  at  once,  and  would  nurse  him  with  a  strained 
impeccability,  concentrating  with  unnecessary  intensity  on  the 
minutiae  of  his  treatment  and  diet  as  if  she  were  attempting 
to  exclude  from  her  mind  some  thought  that  insisted  on  pre- 
senting itself  at  these  times.  When  they  came  to  her  on  win- 
ter evenings  and  wet  days  and  asked  for  a  story,  she  would 
choose  more  often  to  tell  them  a  fairy-tale,  which  only  Roger 
liked,  rather  than  to  start  one  of  the  sagas  which  Richard 
loved,  and  would  help  to  invent,  concerning  the  adventures  of 
the  family  in  some  previous  animal  existence,  when  they  had 
all  been  rabbits  and  lived  in  a  burrow  in  the  park  at  Torque 


340  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

Hall,  or  crocodiles  who  slooshed  about  in  the  Thames  mud, 
or  lions  and  tigers  with  a  lair  on  Kerith  Island.  She  never 
gave  any  present  to  Richard  without  giving  one  to  Roger  too ; 
she  dressed  him  as  carefully  in  the  same  woollen  and  linen 
suits,  although  in  nothing  did  he  look  well.  Never  had  she 
lifted  her  hand  against  him. 

As  time  went  on  she  began  to  make  light  of  her  destiny  and 
to  declare  that  there  was  no  horror  in  this  house  at  all,  but 
only  a  young  woman  living  with  her  two  children,  one  of  whom 
was  not  so  attractive  as  the  other.  It  was  true  that  sometimes, 
when  she  was  sewing  or  washing  dishes  at  the  sink,  she  would 
find  herself  standing  quite  still,  her  fingers  rigid,  her  mind 
shocked  and  vacant,  as  if  some  thought  had  strode  into  it  and 
showed  so  monstrous  a  face  that  all.  other  thoughts  had  fled ; 
and  she  would  realise  that  she  had  been  thinking  of  something 
about  Roger,  but  she  could  not  remember  what.  Usually  this 
happened  after  there  had  arrived — as  there  did  every  six 
months — parcels  of  toys,  addressed  to  him  and  stamped  with 
the  Dawlish  postmark  and  containing  a  piece  of  paper 
scrawled  "With  love  from  father." 

She  would  be  troubled  by  such  moments  when  they  came, 
for  she  was  growing  distantly  fond  of  Roger.  There  was 
something  touching  about  this  pale  child,  whose  hunger  for  love 
was  so  strong  that  it  survived  and  struggled  through  the  clayey 
substance  of  its  general  being  which  had  smothered  all  other 
movements  of  its  soul;  who  was  so  full  of  love  itself  that  it 
accepted  the  empty  sham  of  feeling  she  gave  it  and  breathed 
on  it,  and  filled  it  with  its  own  love,  and  was  so  innocent  that 
it  did  not  detect  that  nobody  had  really  given  it  anything,  and 
went  on  rejoicing,  thus  redeeming  her  from  guilt.  He  would 
come  and  stand  at  the  door  of  any  room  in  which  she  was  sit- 
ting, and  she  would  pretend  not  to  know  he  was  there,  so  that 
she  need  caress  him  or  say  the  forced  loving  word;  but 
when  at  length,  irritated  by  his  repeated  sniffs,  she  turned 
towards  him,  she  would  find  the  grey  marbles  of  his  eyes 
bright  with  happiness,  and  he  would  cry  out  in  his  dreadful 
whistling  voice,  "Ah,  you  didn't  know  I  was  watching  you!" 
and  run  across  undoubtingly  to  her  arms.  There  would  be 
real  gratitude  in  the  embrace  she  gave  him.  His  trust  in  her 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  341 

had  so  changed  the  moment  that  she  need  not  feel  remorse 
for  it. 

It  had  seemed  quite  possible  that  they  could  go  on  like  this 
for  ever,  until  the  very  instant  that  all  was  betrayed.  She  had 
had  a  terrible  time  with  Richard,  who  was  now  seven  years 
old.  After  their  midday  meal  he  had  asked  permission  to  go 
and  spend  the  afternoon  playing  with  some  other  boys  on  the 
marshes,  and  she  had  given  it  to  him  with  a  kiss,  under  which 
she  had  thought  he  seemed  a  little  sullen.  When  Roger  and 
she  had  nearly  finished  their  tea  he  had  appeared  at  the  door, 
had  stood  there  for  a  minute,  and  then,  throwing  up  his  head, 
had  said  doggedly:  "I've  had  a  lovely  time  at  the  circus." 
She  had  left  the  bread-knife  sticking  in  midloaf  and  sat  look- 
ing at  him  in  silence.  This  was  real  drama,  for  she  had  re- 
fused to  take  them  to  the  circus  and  forbidden  him  to  go  by 
himself  because  there  was  a  measles  epidemic  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. It  flashed  across  her  that  by  asking  for  permission 
to  play  with  the  boys  on  the  marshes  when  he  meant  to  go  to 
the  circus  he  had  told  her  a  lie.  The  foolish  primitive  ma- 
ternal part  of  her  was  convulsed  with  horror  at  his  fault. 
Because  he  was  more  important  than  anybody  else,  it  seemed 
the  most  tremendous  fault  that  anybody  had  ever  committed, 
and  because  he  was  her  son  it  seemed  quite  unlike  any  other 
fault  and  far  more  excusable.  Her  detached  wisdom  warned 
her  that  she  must  check  all  such  tendencies  in  him,  since  what 
would  in  other  children  be  judged  a  shortcoming  natural  to 
their  age,  would  in  him  be  ascribed  to  the  evil  blood  of  his 
lawless  begetting,  and  he  would  start  life  under  the  powerful 
suggestion  of  a  bad  reputation.  She  resolved  to  punish  him. 
The  core  of  her  that  was  nothing  but  love  for  Richard,  that 
would  have  loved  him  utterly  if  they  had  not  been  mother 
and  son,  but  man  and  woman,  or  man  and  man,  or  woman  and 
woman,  cried  out  with  anguish  that  she  should  have  to  hurt 
him  to  guard  against  the  destiny  which  she  herself  had  thrust 
upon  him. 

She  said  in  a  strained  voice :  "How  dare  you  tell  a  lie  to  me 
and  pretend  that  you  were  going  to  the  marshes?"  He  an- 
swered, his  eyebrows  meeting  and  lying  in  straight,  sullen 
bars :  "I  had  to  do  that  so's  you  wouldn't  worry  about  me 


342  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

not  coming  home.  And  I  paid  for  myself  with  the  sixpence 
that  was  over  from  the  five  shillings  Cousin  Tom  gave  me  at 
Christmas.  And  you  know  it  doesn't  really  matter  about  the 
measles,  because  I'm  strong  and  don't  always  go  catching 
things  like  Roger  does." 

He  made  as  if  he  were  going  to- sit  down  at  the  table,  but 
she  said:  "No,  you  mustn't  have  any  tea.  Go  to  your  room 
and  undress.  You've  lied  and  you've  disobeyed.  I'll  have  to 
whip  you."  Her  heart  was  thumping  so  that  she  thought  she 
was  going  to  faint.  He  lifted  his  chin  a  little  higher  and  said : 
"Very  well,  the  circus  was  very  good.  It  was  quite  worf 
this."  He  marched  out  of  the  room  and  left  her  sick  and 
quivering  at  her  duty.  After  she  had  heard  him  bang  his 
door,  she  realised  that  Roger  was  asking  her  again  and  again 
if  he  might  have  some  more  cherry  jam,  and  she  answered, 
sighing  deeply,  "No,  dear,  it's  too  rich.  If  you  have  any  more 
you'll  be  ill,"  and  she  rose  from  the  table  and  took  the  jar 
into  the  larder.  She  decided  to  clear  away  tea  first,  but  that 
only  meant  carrying  the  tray  backwards  and  forwards  twice, 
and  after  a  few  moments  she  found  herself  standing  in  the 
middle  of  the  kitchen,  shaking  with  terror,  while  the  other 
child  whined  about  her  skirts  and  stretched  up  its  abhorrent 
little  arms.  She  pushed  it  aside,  qualifying  the  harsh  move- 
ment with  some  insincere  endearment,  and  went  to  Richard's 
room  and  walked  in  blindly,  saying :  "I  must  whip  you — you've 
broken  the  law,  and  if  you  do  that  you  must  be  punished." 
Out  of  the  darkness  before  her  came  the  voice  of  the  tiny 
desperado:  "Very  well.  It  was  quite  worf  this.  Mother, 
I'm  ready.  Come  on  and  whip  me."  She  pulled  down  the 
blinds  and  set  herself  to  the  horrid  task,  and  kept  at  it  hardly, 
unsparingly,  until  she  felt  she  had  really  hurt  him.  Then 
she  said,  with  what  seemed  to  be  the  last  breath  in  her  heart- 
shattered  body:  "There,  you  see,  whenever  you  break  the  law 
people  will  hurt  you  like  this.  So  take  notice."  She  moved 
about  the  room,  leaving  it  as  it  should  be  left  for  the  night, 
opening  the  windows  and  folding  up  the  counterpane,  while 
he  lay  face  downwards  on  his  pillow.  Just  as  she  was  closing 
the  door  he  called  softly: 

"Mummie !" 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  343 

She  continued  to  close  it,  and  he  cried: 

"Mummie !" 

But  she  remained  quite  quiet  so  that  he  thought  she  had 
gone.  After  a  minute  she  heard  him  throw  himself  over  in  the 
bed  and  kick  the  clothes  and  sob  fiercely,  "Gah!  Why  can't 
she  come  when  I  call  her?" 

She  was  back  by  his  bedside  in  a  second,  and  his  arms  were 
round  her  neck  and  he  was  sobbing: 

"Mummie,  mummie,  I  know  I've  been  naughty!"  And  as 
he  felt  the  wetness  of  her  face  he  cried  out,  "Oh,  mummie, 
have  I  made  you  cry?  I  will  be  good!  I  will  be  good!  I'll 
never  make  you  cry  again !  I  know  I  was  a  beast  to  go  'cos 
you  really  were  frightened  of  us  getting  measles,  but  oh,  mum- 
mie, I  did  so  want  to  see  a  tiger !" 

They  clung  to  each  other,  weeping,  and  he  said  things  into 
her  neck  that  were  far  more  babyish  than  usual  and  yet  fiercely 
manly,  and  they  almost  melted  into  each  other  in  the  hot  flow 
of  loving  tears. 

"You  were  quite  right  to  whip  me,"  he  told  her.  "I  wouldn't 
have  believed  you  were  really  cross  if  you  hadn't  hurt  me." 
Presently,  when  he  was  lying  quietly  in  her  arms,  all  sticky 
sweetness  like  toffee,  he  sighed,  "Oh,  darling,  the  circus  was 
lovely !  There  were  such  clever  people.  There  was  a  Cossack 
horseman  who  picked  up  handkerchiefs  off  the  ground  when  he 
was  riding  at  full  speed,  and  there  was  a  most  beautiful  lady 
in  pink  satin.  Mummie,  you'd  look  lovely  in  pink  satin ! — and 
she'd  bells  on  her  legs  and  arms,  and  she  waggled  them  and  it 
made  a  tune.  That  was  lovely,  but  I  liked  the  animals  best. 
Oh,  darling,  the  lions !" 

She  rebuked  him  for  his  continued  enjoyment  of  an  illicit 
spectacle  that  ought  now  to  be  regarded  only  as  material  for 
repentance,  but  he  protested :  "Mummie,  you  are  mean.  Now 
you've  whipped  me  for  going,  surely  I've  a  right  to  enjoy  it." 
But  he  lay  back  and  just  gave  himself  up  to  loving  her.  "Oh, 
you  beautiful  mummie.  You've  such  lots  and  lots  of  hair.  If 
there  were  two  little  men  just  as  big  as  my  fingers,  they  could 
go  into  your  hair,  one  at  each  ear,  and  walk  about  it  like  people 
do  in  the  African  forests,  couldn't  they?  And  they'd  meet  in 
your  parting,  and  one  would  say  to  the  other,  'Mr.  Livingstone, 


344  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

I  presume  ?'  "    They  both  laughed  and  hugged  each  other,  and 
he  presently  fell  asleep  as  suddenly  as  children  do. 

She  lingered  over  him  for  long,  peering  at  him  through  the 
dusk  to  miss  nothing  of  his  bloomy  brownness.  He  curled  up 
when  he  slept  like  a  little  animal,  and  his  breath  drove  through 
him  deeply  and  more  serenely  than  any  adult's.  At  last  she 
felt  compelled  to  kiss  him,  and,  without  waking  up,  he  shook 
his  head  about  and  said  disgustedly,  "Wugh !"  as  she  rose  and 
left  him. 

Twilight  was  flooding  the  house,  and  peace  also,  and  she 
moved  happily  through  the  dear  place  where  she  lived  with  her 
dear  son,  her  heart  wounded  and  yet  light,  because  though  she 
had  had  to  hurt  him,  she  knew  that  henceforward  he  would 
obey  whatever  laws  she  laid  upon  him.  He  had  been  subject  to 
her  when  he  was  a  baby ;  it  was  plain  that  he  was  going  to  be 
subject  to  her  now  that  he  was  a  boy;  she  might  almost  hope 
that  she  would  never  lose  him.  "I  must  make  myself  good 
enough  to  deserve  this,"  she  said  prayingly.  As  she  went 
downstairs  she  looked  through  the  open  front  door  into  the 
crystalline  young  night,  tinged  with  purple  by  some  invisible 
red  moon  and  diluted  by  the  daylight  that  had  not  yet  all 
poured  down  the  sluice  of  the  west,  and  resolved  to  go  out  and 
meditate  for  a  little  on  how  she  must  live  to  be  worthy  of  this 
happy  motherhood. 

She  walked  quickly  and  skimmingly  about  the  dark  lawns, 
exalted  and  humble.  In  a  gesture  of  joy  she  threw  out  her 
arms  and  struck  a  clump  of  nightstock,  and  the  scent  rushed 
up  at  her.  A  nightingale  sang  in  the  woods  across  the  lane. 
These  things  seemed  to  her  to  be  in  some  way  touchingly 
relevant  to  the  beautiful  destiny  of  her  and  her  son,  and 
her  eyes  were  filled  with  tears  of  gratitude  for  nature's  sym- 
pathy. She  went  round  the  house,  walking  softly,  keeping 
close  to  the  wall,  to  eavesdrop  on  the  lovely,  drowsy,  kindly 
world.  The  silence  of  the  farmyard  was  pulsed  with  the 
breath  of  many  sleeping  beasts.  The  dark  doors  and  windows 
of  the  cattle-sheds  looked  out  under  the  thick  brows  of  their 
thatched  eaves  at  the  strange  fluctuating  wine-like  light  as  if 
they  were  consciously  preserving  their  occupants  from  the 
night's  magic.  As  she  walked  to  the  garden's  edge,  the  crick- 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  345 

ets  chirped  in  the  long  grass  and  the  ballet  of  the  bats  drove 
back  and  forwards  in  long  streaks.  The  round  red  moon  hung 
on  the  breast  of  a  flawless  night,  whose  feet  were  hidden  in 
an  amethystine  haze  that  covered  the  marshes  and  the  sea, 
and  changed  the  lit  liners  going  from  Tilbury  to  floating  opals ; 
and  within  the  house  was  Richard.  All  was  beauty. 

Surely  it  would  be  given  to  her  to  deserve  to  be  his  mother  ? 
She  stood  there  in  an  ecstasy  that  was  hardly  at  all  excitement, 
until  it  blew  cold  and  she  remembered  that  she  had  left  the 
fire  unmended,  and  went  back  to  the  house. 

She  went  in  by  the  kitchen,  and  was  amazed  to  see  that  the 
larder  door  was  open  and  giving  out  a  faint  ray  of  light.  She 
pulled  it  open  and  saw  the  other  child  standing  on  a  chair  and 
spooning  cherry  jam  out  of  the  jar  into  his  mouth.  A  candle, 
which  it  had  put  on  the  shelf  below  it,  threw  on  the  ceiling  an 
enormous  shadow  of  its  large,  jerry-built  skull.  It  turned  on 
her  a  pale  and  filthy  face  and  dropped  the  jar,  so  that  gobs  of 
jam  fell  on  its  pinafore,  the  paper-covered  shelf,  the  chair,  the 
floor.  She  lifted  the  child  down  and  struck  it.  It  gave  her  the 
most  extraordinary  pleasure  to  strike  it.  She  struck  it  three 
times,  and  each  time  it  was  as  good  as  drinking  wine.  Then 
she  fell  forward  on  her  knees  and  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands.  The  child  ceased  to  howl  and  put  its  jammy  arms 
forgivingly  about  her  while  she  wept,  but  its  touch  only  re- 
minded her  how  delicious  it  had  been  to  beat  it.  Still,  she 
submitted  to  its  embrace,  and  muttered  in  abasement:  "Oh, 
lovey,  mummy  shouldn't  have  done  that !" 

The  child  was  puzzled,  for  it  knew  it  ought  not  to  have 
stolen  the  jam,  and  as  always,  it  was  so  full  of  love  that  it 
could  not  believe  that  anybody  had  behaved  badly  to  it.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  give  it  a  kiss  and  take  it  off  to  bed. 
When  she  saw  its  horrid  little  body  stripped  for  the  bath,  heat 
ran  through  her  throat,  and  she  remembered  again  how  ex- 
quisite it  had  been  to  hurt  him,  and  she  speculated  whether 
very  much  force  would  be  needed  to  kill  it.  All  the  time  it 
knelt  at  her  knee  saying  its  prayers  she  was  wondering  whether, 
when  he  was  a  little  older,  he  would  not  get  caught  by  the 
tide  out  on  the  flats.  "You  vile  woman!"  she  exclaimed  in 
amazement.  "You  murderess !"  But  that  was  merely  ccnver- 


346  THE  JUDGE 


BOOK    TWO 


sation  which  did  not  alter  the  established  fact  that  her  pro- 
founder  self  still  hated  the  child  it  had  brought  forth,  as  it 
had  done  before  he  was  born,  and  now,  as  then,  was  plotting 
to  kill  it,  and  that  some  check  which  her  consciousness  had 
always  exerted  on  that  hatred  had  for  some  reason  been  dam- 
aged, and  that  he  was  in  active  danger  from  her. 

All  night  she  lay  awake,  and  in  the  morning  she  went  up 
to  the  bailiff's  office  at  Torque  Hall  and  asked  them  to  send 
for  Harry.  She  waited  in  an  inner  room,  her  heart  quite  calm 
with  misery,  and  when  Harry  appeared  in  the  doorway  she 
did  not  care  one  way  or  another  that  he  was  white  and  shaken. 
Without  delaying  to  greet  him,  she  told  him  that  she  loathed 
Peacey's  child  so  much  that  it  must  be  taken  away  from  her, 
at  least  for  some  time,  and  that  she  had  wondered  if  she  ought 
to  give  him  a  chance  of  finding  affection  with  his  father,  who 
had,  after  all,  never  stopped  sending  him  presents. 

There  was  a  silence,  and  she  turned  her  eyes  on  him  and 
found  him  looking  disapproving.  Plainly  he  thought  it  very 
unnatural  of  her  to  dislike  her  own  child,  and  was  daring  to 
doubt  if  his  own  son  was  safe  with«her.  He — he  of  all  men — 
who  by  his  disloyalty  had  brought  on  her  this  monstrous  birth 
that  had  deformed  her  fate !  She  clenched  her  fists  and  drew 
in  a  sharp  breath  and  her  eyes  blazed.  He  moved  forward 
suddenly  in  his  chair,  and  she  saw  that  this  display  of  her 
quality  had  drawn  him  to  her,  as  always  the  moon  of  her 
being  had  drawn  the  fluid  tides  of  his,  and  that  he  wanted  to 
touch  her.  Nearly  he  desired  her.  That  also  was  insolence. 
Her  acute  hating  glance  recorded  that  whereas  desire  had  used 
to  make  his  face  hard  and  splendid  like  a  diamond,  like  a 
flashing  sword,  it  now  made  it  lax,  and  she  realised  with 
agony,  though,  of  course,  without  surprise,  that  he  had  been 
unfaithful  to  their  love  times  without  number.  But  she  looked 
into  his  eyes  and  found  them  bereaved  as  her  heart  was.  She 
turned  aside  and  sobbed  once,  drily.  After  that,  they  spoke 
softly,  as  if  one  they  had  both  loved  lay  dead  somewhere  close 
at  hand.  He  told  her  that  Peacey  had  set  up  for  himself  in 
an  inn,  and  that  a  widowed  sister  of  his,  named  Susan  Rodney, 
who  also  had  been  in  the  Torques'  service,  was  keeping  house 
for  him.  She  was  a  really  good  sort,  he  declared,  although 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  347 

she  was  Peacey's  sister,  and  very  motherly;  indeed,  she  had 
been  terribly  upset  by  the  loss  of  her  only  child,  a  little  boy 
of  nine,  so  she  would  doubtless  welcome  the  charge  of  Roger. 
At  any  rate,  there  would  be  no  harm  in  letting  the  child  go  to 
her  for  a  three  months'  visit. 

"I'll  settle  the  whole  thing,"  he  said.  "You'd  better  not 
write;  he  may  want  to  meet  you." 

With  distaste  she  perceived  that  although  he  had  never  done 
anything  useful  for  her,  he  was  still  capable  of  being  jealous 
of  her,  and  she  abruptly  rose  to  go.  But  she  delayed  for  a 
moment  to  satisfy  a  curiosity  that  had  vexed  her  for  years. 

"Tell  me,"  she  asked.  "How  did  you  get  rid  of  Peacey? 
Was  it  money?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Not  altogether.  You  see,  I 
found  out  something  about  him.  .  .  ." 

She  walked  home  slowly,  with  her  head  bent,  wondering 
what  blood  she  had  perpetuated. 

So,  a  week  later,  Susan  Rodney  came.  Her  visit  was  a  great 
humiliation.  She  was  a  woman  of  thirty-five,  strangely  and 
reassuringly  unlike  her  brother,  having  a  fair,  sun-burned  skin 
with  a  golden  down  on  her  upper  lip,  and  slow-moving  eyes, 
the  colour  of  a  blue  sky  reflected  in  shallow  floods.  She  was  as 
clean  and  useful  as  a  scrubbed  deal  table.  And  because  she 
was  wholesome  in  her  soul,  she  abhorred  this  woman  who  was 
sending  away  her  own  child.  During  the  twenty-four  hours 
she  was  at  Yaverland's  End  she  ate  sparingly,  plainly  because 
she  felt  reluctance  at  accepting  hospitality  from  Marion,  and 
rose  very  early,  as  if  she  found  sleeping  difficult  in  the  air  of 
this  house.  This  might  have  been  in  part  due  to  the  affection 
she  evidently  felt  for  her  brother,  which  was  shown  in  the 
proud  and  grudging  responses  to  Marion's  enquiries  as  to  how 
he  was  getting  on  at  Dawlish. 

"He's  doing  ever  so  well,  and  he's  made  the  place  a  picture," 
she  would  begin  volubly,  and  then  would  toss  her  head  slowly 
like  a  teased  heifer,  and  decide  that  Marion  did  not  deserve  to 
hear  tidings  of  the  glorious  man  she  had  slighted.  But  the 
greater  part  of  her  loathing  was  that  which  a  woman  with  a 
simple  heart  of  nature  must  feel  for  one  who  hated  her  child, 
which  the  sound  must  feel  for  the  leprous. 


348  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

Marion  could  have  mitigated  that  feeling  in  a  great  part, 
not  by  explaining,  for  that  was  impossible,  but  by  simply  show- 
ing that  she  had  suffered,  for  Susan  was  a  kind  woman.  In- 
stead she  did  everything  she  could  to  encourage  it.  She  told 
no  lies,  although  by  now  her  efforts  to  win  over  the  neighbour- 
hood, so  that  she  could  get  a  servant  easily  and  be  abV  to  give 
her  whole  time  to  the  children,  had  made  her  coldly  sly  in  her 
dealings  with  humanity.  She  liked  Susan  too  much  for  that. 
Merely  she  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  her  personality.  After 
the  children  had  gone  to  bed  she  sat  by  the  hearth  and  held 
her  head  high  under  the  other's  ruminant  stare,  knowing  that 
because  of  the  times  she  had  been  subject  to  love  and  to  lust 
her  beauty  was  lip-marked  as  a  well-read  book  is  thumb- 
marked,  and  that  that  would  seem  a  mark  of  abomination  to 
this  woman  in  the  salty  climate  of  whose  character  passion 
could  not  bloom.  She  knew,  too,  that  to  Susan,  who  every 
Sunday  since  her  babyhood  had  gone  to  church  and  prayed 
very  hard,  with  her  thick  fair  brows  brought  close  together, 
to  be  helped  to  be  good,  the  pride  of  her  bearing  would  seem 
terribly  wicked  to  a  sinner  who  had  broken  one  of  the  Ten 
Commandments. 

Marion  kept  down  her  eyes  so  that  the  other  should  not 
see  that  the  eyeballs  were  strained  with  agony,  and  should 
think  that  she  was  a  loose  and  conscienceless  woman.  She 
hated  doing  this.  She  liked  Susan  so  much,  and  she  was 
terribly  lonely.  She  would  like  to  have  thrown  her  arms  round 
Susan's  neck  and  cried  and  cried,  and  told  her  how  terribly 
difficult  she  found  life,  and  how  she  nated  people  being  nasty 
to  her,  and  asked  her  if  sometimes  she  did  not  long  for  a  man 
to  look  after  her.  But  instead  she  sat  there  rigidly  alienating 
her.  For  she  had  seen  that  because  Susan  disliked  her  she 
was  precipitating  herself  much  more  impulsively  than  she 
would  otherwise  have  done  into  affection  for  the  child  whom 
she  suspected  was  being  maltreated  by  this  queer  woman  in 
this  queer  house.  In  any  case  she  would  have  admitted  Roger 
to  her  heart,  for  it  was  plainly  very  empty  since  the  loss  of 
her  son,  whom  she  had  loved  so  dearly  that  she  did  not  speak 
of  him  to  Marion,  but  being  slow  of  movement  she  might  have 
taken  her  time  over  it;  and  it  was  necessary  that  these  two 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  349 

should  love  each  other  at  once.  At  any  moment  Roger  might 
understand  his  mummie  hated  him,  and  that  would  break  his 
poor  little  heart,  which  she  knew  was  golden,  unless  he  had 
some  other  love  to  which  to  run.  She  was  so  glad  when  she 
found  herself  seeing  them  off  at  Paddington,  although  it  was 
a  horrible  scene.  Susan  had  primly,  and  with  an  air  of  re- 
fusing to  participate  in  the  spoils  of  vice,  declined  to  let  Marion 
buy  her  a  firstclass  ticket,  so  the  parting  had  to  take  place 
in  a  crowded  thirdclass  compartment.  Roger  shrieked  and 
kicked  at  leaving  her,  and  leaned  howling  from  the  window, 
while  Marion  said  over  and  over  again,  "Mummy's  so  sorry 
.  .  .  it's  only  that  just  now  she  isn't  well  enough  to  look  after 
you  both  .  .  .  and  Richard's  the  eldest,  so  he  must  stay  .  .  . 
and  you'll  be  back  ever  so  soon.  .  .  .  And  there's  such  lovely 
sands  at  Dawlish.  .  .  ." 

All  the  people  in  the  corner-seats  had  looked  with  distaste 
at  this  plain,  ill-behaved  child  and  had  cast  commending  glances 
on  Richard,  who  stood  by  her  side  on  the  platform,  absorbedly 
watching  the  porters  wheeling  their  trucks  along,  but  always 
keeping  on  the  alert  so  that  he  never  got  in  anyone's  way. 
She  couldn't  bear  that.  She  wanted  to  scream  out :  "How  dare 
you  look  like  that  at  this  poor  little  soul  who  has  been  sinned 
against  from  the  moment  of  his  begetting?  Think  of  it,  his 
mother  hates  him !" 

She  looked  wildly  at  Susan  for  some  comfort,  but  found 
her  pink  with  grave  anger.  Well,  it  was  better  for  Roger  that 
Susan  should  feel  thus  about  her.  So  she  went  on  with  these 
murmurs,  which  she  felt  the  child  might  detect  as  insincere 
at  any  moment,  until  the  green  flag  waved.  She  watched  the 
diminishing  train  with  a  criminally  light  heart.  Richard  began 
to  jump  up  and  down.  "Mummie!  Won't  it  be  lovely — just 
us  two!" 

It  was  lovely.  It  was  iniquitously  lovely.  In  the  morning 
Richard  ran  into  her  room  and  flung  himself,  all  dewy  after 
the  night's  long  sleep,  into  her  bed  and  nuzzled  into  her  and 
gave  her  endless  love  which  did  not  have  to  be  interrupted 
because  the  other  child  was  standing  at  the  head  of  the  bed,  its 
pale  eyes  asking  for  its  share  of  kisses.  When  he  went  to 
school,  she  stood  at  the  door  and  watched  him  run  along  the 


350  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

.garden  to  the  gate,  flinging  out  his  arms  and  legs  quite  straight 
as  a  foal  does,  and  was  exultingly  proud  of  being  a  mother  as 
she  had  not  been  when  there  ran  behind  him  Roger  on  weak, 
ambling  limbs.  When  he  returned,  they  had  their  meal  to- 
gether to  the  tune  of  happy  laughter,  for  there  was  now  no 
third  to  spill  its  food  or  say  it  was  feeling  sick  suddenly  or 
babble  silly  things.  In  the  afternoon  she  had  to  drive  him  out 
to  go  and  play  games  with  the  other  boys.  Much  rather  would 
he  have  stayed  with  her,  and  when  she  called  him  back  for  a 
last  hug  he  did  not  struggle  in  her  arms  but  gave  her  back 
kiss  for  kiss.  She  always  changed  her  dress  for  tea,  and  ar- 
ranged her  hair  loosely  like  a  woman  in  a  picture,  and  went 
out  into  the  garden  to  gather  burning  leaves  and  put  them  in 
vases  about  the  room,  and  when  it  fell  dark  she  set  lighted 
candles  on  the  table  because  they  were  kinder  than  the  lamp 
to  her  pain-flawed  handsomeness  and  because  they  left  corners 
of  dusk  in  which  these  leaves  glowed  like  fire  with  the  kind  of 
beauty  that  she  and  Richard  liked.  She  would  arrange  all  this 
long  before  he  came  in,  and  sit  waiting  in  a  drowse  of  happi- 
ness, thinking  that  really  she  had  lost  nothing  by  being  cut  off 
from  the  love  of  man,  for  this  was  much  better  than  anything 
she  could  have  had  from  Harry.  When  Richard  came  in  he 
would  hold  his  breath  because  it  was  so  nice  and  forget  to  tell 
her  about  the  game  from  which  he  was  still  flushed ;  and  after 
tea  they  would  settle  down  to  a  lovely  warm,  close  evening 
by  the  fire,  when  they  would  tell  each  other  all  the  animal 
stories  that  Roger  had  not  liked. 

On  Saturday  afternoons  they  always  went  down  to  the 
marshes  together,  and  they  were  glad  that  now  was  the  ebb- 
ing of  the  year,  for  both  found  the  beauty  of  bad  weather 
somehow  truer  than  the  beauty  of  the  sunshine.  They  loved 
to  walk  under  high-backed  clouds  that  the  wind  carried  hori- 
zonwards  in  pursuance  of  some  feud  of  the  skies.  They  liked 
to  see  Roothing  Castle  standing  up  behind  a  salt  mist,  pale 
and  flat  as  if  it  were  cut  out  of  paper.  They  liked  to  sit,  too, 
at  the  point  where  there  met  together  the  three  creeks  that 
divided  Roothing  Marsh,  the  Saltings,  and  Kerith  Island.  That 
was  good  when  the  tide  was  out,  and  the  sea-walls  rose  black 
from  a  silver  plain  of  mud,  valleyed  with  channels  thin  and 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  351 

dark  as  veins.  They  would  wait  until  the  winter  sunset  kin- 
dled and  they  had  to  return  home  quickly,  looking  over  their 
shoulders  at  its  flames. 

Lovely  it  was  to  find  that  he  liked  all  the  things  she  did: 
loneliness  and  the  sting  of  rain  on  the  face  and  the  cry  of 
the  redshanks ;  and  lovely  it  was  to  find  in  watching  his  liking 
what  a  glorious  being  it  was  that  she  had  borne.  The  eyes 
of  his  soul  glowed  like  the  eyes  of  his  body.  She  had  loved 
Harry's  love  for  her  because  it  made  him  quick  and  unhesitant 
and  unmuddied  by  half -thought  thoughts  and  half-felt  feelings 
as  ordinary  people  are,  but  this  child  was  like  that  all  the 
time.  Pride  ruled  his  life,  so  that  she  never  had  to  feel  anx- 
ious about  his  behaviour,  knowing  that  he  would  pull  himself 
up  into  uncriticisable  conduct  just  as  he  always  held  his  head 
high,  and  all  the  forces  of  his  spirit  were  poured  out  into  his 
passion  for  her.  She  had  always  known  these  things,  and  now* 
the  knowledge  of  them  was  not  balanced  by  the  knowledge 
that  her  faith  held  weight  for  weight  of  infamy  and  glory. 
For  now  that  Roger  was  not  here  there  was  nothing  to  re- 
mind her  that  the  man  to  whom  she  had  given  her  virginity 
had  not  come  to  her  help  when  she  was  going  to  have  his  child 
and  had  left  her  to  be  trodden  into  the  mud  by  the  fat  man 
Peacey.  Now  she  only  knew  that  she  was  the  beloved  mother 
of  this  splendid  son.  What  had  happened  to  the  man  with 
whom,  according  to  the  indecent  and  ridiculous  dispensation 
of  nature,  she  had  had  to  be  enmeshed  in  a  net  of  hot  excite- 
ments and  undignified  physical  impulses  in  order  to  obtain  this 
child,  mattered  nothing  at  all.  He  had  been  so  much  less 
splendid  than  his  son. 

She  grew  well  with  happiness.  She  became  plumper,  and 
there  was  colour  on  her  cheeks  as  well  as  in  her  lips.  People 
ceased  to  treat  her  with  the  hostility  that  the  happy  feel  for 
the  unhappy.  Presently  she  knew  that  she  would  soon  regain 
complete  self-control  and  would  be  able  to  keep  shut  the  trap- 
door of  her  hidden  self,  and  that  it  would  be  quite  safe  for  her 
to  have  Roger  back  at  the  end  of  three  months.  She  began  to 
speak  of  it  to  Richard.  "Roger  will  be  with  us  for  Xmas," 
she  used  to  say.  "We  must  think  out  some  surprises  for  him. 
.  .  ."  To  which  Richard  would  answer  tensely,  "I  s'pose  so." 


352  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

That  always  chilled  her,  and  she  would  drop  the  subject,  feeling 
that  after  all  there  was  no  need  to  speak  of  it  just  yet.  But 
once,  as  the  days  passed  into  December,  she  tried  to  have  it 
out  with  him,  and  followed  it  up  by  saying:  "You  might  try 
to  be  a  little  more  pleased  about  it.  I  do  want  you  and  Roger 
to  be  nice  to  each  other."  He  answered,  looking  curiously 
grown  up,  "Oh,  Roger  will  always  be  nice  to  me — you  needn't 
worry  about  that." 

As  she  heard  the  tone,  with  its  insolent  allusion  to  Roger's 
natural  slavishness,  she  realised  why  the  vicar  and  the  teach- 
ers in  the  village  school,  and  many  of  the  other  people  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact,  disliked  him.  There  was  something 
terrifying  about  this  cold-tempered  judgment  coming  from  a 
child.  She  had  wondered,  looking  at  the  beauty  of  his  con- 
temptuous little  face  and  at  the  extraordinary  skill  with  which 
«his  small  brown  hands  were  whittling  a  block  of  wood  into  a 
figure,  whether  it  was  not  a  sound  instinct  on  the  part  of  the 
race  to  persecute  illegitimate  children.  Either  they  were  con- 
ceived more  lethargically  than  other  children,  of  women  who 
yielded  through  feeble-wittedness  or  need  of  money  to  men 
who  did  not  love  them  enough  to  marry  them,  and  so  were 
born  below  the  average  of  the  race,  dullards  that  made  life 
ugly,  or  parasites  that  had  to  be  kept  on  honest  people's  money 
in  prisons  or  workhouses.  Or,  like,  Richard,  they  had  been 
conceived  more  intensely  than  other  children,  of  love  so  pas- 
sionate that  it  had  drawn  together  men  and  women  separated 
by  social  prohibitions.  So  they  were  born  to  rule  like  kings 
over  the  lawfully  begotten,  so  that  married  folk  raged  to  see 
that,  because  they  had  known  no  more  than  ordinary  pleasure, 
their  seed  was  to  be  penalised  by  servitude.  Richard  would 
always  be  adored  by  all  but  the  elderly  and  the  impotent. 

Because  vitality  itself  had  been  kneaded  into  his  flesh  by 
his  parents'  passion  he  would  not  die  until  he  was  an  old,  old 
man  and  needed  rest  after  interminable  victories;  and  because 
it  played  through  his  mind  like  lightning,  he  would  always 
have  power  over  men  and  material,  and  even  over  himself. 
Since  he  had  been  begotten  when  beauty,  like  a  strong  goddess, 
pressed  together  the  bodies  of  his  father  and  mother,  she  would 
disclose  more  of  her  works  to  him  than  to  other  sons  of  men 


CHAPTER  v  THE  JUDGE  353 

with  whose  begetting  she  was  not  concerned.  Even  now,  every 
time  Marion  let  him  take  her  to  the  turn  of  the  road  past 
Roothing,  where  he  could  show  her  the  oak  cut  like  a  club  on 
a  playing-card  and  aflame  with  autumn  that  stood  on  the  hill's 
edge,  against  the  far  grey  desolation  of  Kerith  Island  and  the 
sunless  tides,  he  knew  such  joy  as  one  would  have  thought 
beyond  a  child's  achievement.  He  would  get  as  much  out  of 
life  as  any  man  that  ever  lived.  At  the  thought  of  the  contrast 
between  this  heir  to  everything  and  the  other  child,  that  poor 
waif  who  all  his  life  long  would  be  sent  round  to  the  back  door, 
tears  rushed  to  her  eyes,  and  she  cried  indignantly,  "Oh,  I  do 
think  you  might  be  nice  to  Roger."  Richard  looked  at  her 
sharply.  "What,  do  you  really  mind  about  it,  mummie?" 
The  surprise  in  his  tone  told  her  the  worst  about  her  forced 
and  mechanical  kindnesses  to  Roger.  "Oh,  more  than  any- 
thing," she  almost  sobbed.  "Very  well,  I'll  be  nice  to  him," 
he  answered  shortly,  adding  after  a  minute,  with  a  deliberate 
impishness,  as  if  he  hated  the  moment  and  wanted  to  bur- 
lesque it,  "After  all,  mums,  I  never  do  hit  him.  .  .  ."  But  for 
the  rest  of  the  evening  the  golden  glow  of  his  face  was  clouded 
with  solemnity,  and  when  she  was  tucking  him  up  that  night 
he  said,  in  an  off-hand  way,  "vt  u  know  prob'ly  Roger's  got 
much  older  while  he's  been  away,  and  I'll  be  able  to  play  with 
him  more  when  he  comes  back."  She  laughed  happily.  If  he 
was  going  to  help  her  to  frustrate  her  unnatural  hatred  of 
Roger,  she  would  succeed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THEN,  a  week  later,  Harry  died.  That  might  have  meant 
grief,  wrecking  and  inexpressible,  for  she  discovered 
that  she  was  still  his.  Love  lay  in  her,  indestructible  as  an  ele- 
ment. It  was  true  that  passion  was  gone  from  her  for  ever,  but 
that  had  been  merely  an  alloy  added  to  it  by  nature  when  she  de- 
sired to  use  it  as  currency  to  buy  continuance,  and  love  itself 
had  survived.  She  might  have  lacerated  herself  with  mourning 
for  the  fracture  of  their  marriage  and  the  separation  of  their 
later  years  had  it  not  been  for  the  beautiful  thing  that  had 
happened  the  afternoon  before  he  died.  It  was  so  beautiful 
that  she  hardly  ever  rehearsed  its  details  to  herself,  preferring 
to  guard  it  in  her  heart  as  one  guards  sacred  things,  preserving 
it  immaculate  even  from  her  own  thoughts.  It  had  lifted  the 
shame  from  her  destiny.  She  perceived  that  the  next  day, 
when  Richard  came  in  and  stood  stumbling  with  the  handle 
of  the  door,  instead  of  running  to  the  table,  though  she  had 
arranged  it  specially,  as  if  this  were  a  birthday,  with  four 
candles  instead  of  two,  and  had  baked  him  a  milk  loaf  for  a 
treat,  and  had  cut  the  last  Michaelmas  daisies  from  the  garden 
and  set  them  in  blanched  mauve  clouds  about  the  dark  edges 
of  the  room. 

"Mother,  the  squire's  dead,"  he  said  at  length.  That  she 
knew  already.  She  had  divined  it  early  in  the  afternoon,  when 
the  village  people  began  to  go  past  the  house  in  twos  and  threes, 
walking  slowly  and  turning  their  faces  towards  her  windows. 
"Yes,  dear,"  she  answered  evenly.  "Mother,  is  it  true  that  the 
squire  was  my  father?  All  the  other  boys  say  so."  She  had 
anticipated  this  moment  for  years  with  terror,  because  always 
before  it  had  seemed  to  her  that  when  it  came  she  must  break 
down  and  tell  him  how  she  had  been  shamed  and  abandoned 
and  cast  away  to  infamy,  and  she  had  dreaded  that  this  might 
make  him  frightened  of  life.  But  because  of  what  had  hap- 
pened the  day  before  she  was  able  to  smile,  as  if  they  were 
talking  of  happy  things,  and  say  slowly  and  delightedly,  "Yes, 

354 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  355 

you  are  his  son."  He  walked  slowly  across  the  room,  knitting 
his  brows  and  staring  at  her  with  eyes  that  were  at  once  crafty 
and  awed,  as  children's  are  when  they  perceive  that  grown-ups 
are  concealing  some  important  fact  from  them,  and  harbour 
at  once  a  quick,  indignant  resolution  to  find  out  what  it  is  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  a  slow,  acquiescent  sense  that  the  truth 
must  be  a  very  sacred  thing  if  it  has  to  be  veiled.  At  her  knee 
he  halted,  and  shot  sharp  glances  up  at  her.  But  the  peace  in 
her  face  made  him  feel  foolish,  and  he  said  in  an  off-hand  man- 
ner: "Mummie,  Miss  Lawrence  says  my  map  of  the  Severn 
is  the  best/'  and  then  turned  to  look  at  the  tea-table.  "Ooh, 
mums,  milk-loaf !"  She  could  see  as  he  continued  that  all 
was  well  with  him.  The  squire  had  been  his  father:  but  it 
evidently  was  not  anything  to  make  a  fuss  about;  it  seemed 
funny  that  he  and  mother  hadn't  lived  together,  but  grown- 
ups were  always  doing  funny  things;  anyway,  it  seemed  to 
be  all  right.  .  .  . 

As  she  sat  and  teased  him  for  making  such  an  enormous 
meal,  and  rejoicing  silently  because  he  had  passed  through  this 
dangerous  moment  so  calmly,  it  struck  her  that  Roger  also 
would  participate  in  the  benefits  brought  by  the  beautiful  hap- 
pening of  the  day  before.  Now  that  her  past  life  had  been 
made  not  humiliating,  but  only  sad,  she  would  no  longer 
feel  angry  with  him  because  he  reminded  her  of  it.  That 
night  she  wrote  to  Susan  Rodney  and  asked  her  to  bring  him 
back  during  the  week  before  Christmas. 

Marion,  groaning,  pressed  the  button  of  the  electric  clock 
that  stood  on  the  table  by  her  bedside,  and  looked  up  at  the 
monstrous  white  dial  it  threw  on  the  ceiling.  Half -past  one. 
She  rolled  over  and  cried  into  the  pillow,  "Richard !  Richard !" 
She  had  already  been  three  hours  in  bed.  There  were  six  more 
hours  till  morning,  six  more  hours  in  which  to  remember 
things,  and  memory  was  a  hot  torment,  a  fire  lit  in  her  brain- 
pan. 

When,  three  days  later,  she  received  Peacey's  letter  saying 
that  he  would  not  allow  the  child  to  go  back  to  her  she  felt 
nothing  but  relief.  It  was  disgusting,  of  course,  to  get  that 


356  THE  JUDGF  BOOK  TWO 

letter,  to  have  to  read  so  many  lines  in  that  loathsome,  large, 
neat,  inflated  handwriting,  but  she  took  it  that  it  meant  that 
those  toys  which  he  had  sent  Roger  every  six  months  were  not, 
as  she  thought,  mere  attempts  to  torture  her  by  reminding  her 
of  his  existence,  but  signs  that  he  had  really  wanted  to  be  a 
father  to  his  son,  and  that  now  that  Harry  was  dead  he  was 
declaring  his  desire  freely.  That  made  her  very  happy,  for  she 
knew  that  love  from  the  worst  man  on  earth  would  be  more 
nourishing  for  the  boy  than  her  insincerity.  She  did  not  tell 
Richard,  because  she  could  not  have  borne  to  see  how  pleased 
he  would  look,  but  she  went  about  the  house  light-heartedly 
for  winter  days,  bursting  with  song,  and  then  penitently  check- 
ing herself  and  planning  to  send  Roger  extravagant  presents 
for  Christmas,  until  Susan  Rodney's  letter  came.  She  had 
sat  with  it  open  on  her  lap,  feeling  sick  and  wondering  in  whose 
care  she  could  leave  Richard  while  she  went  down  to  Dawlish 
and  fetched  the  poor  little  thing  away,  for  quite  a  long  time, 
before  it  occurred  to  her  that  Harry  had  never  told  her  the 
secret  by  which  he  held  Peacey  in  subjection.  Immediately 
she  realised  that  Peacey  knew  this.  Out  of  his  cold,  dilettante 
knowledge  he  had  known  that  when  she  and  Harry  met  they 
would  not  be  able  to  speak  his  name  for  more  than  one  minute. 
She  wished  she  were  the  kind  of  woman  who  fainted  from 
fear.  The  clock  ticked,  and  not  less  steadily  beat  her  heart, 
and  nothing  came  to  distract  her  from  looking  into  the  face  of 
this  fact  that  she  had  now  no  power  over  Peacey  and  he 
knew  it. 

Then  she  huddled  forward  towards  the  fire,  which  no  longer 
seemed  to  heat  her,  and  Susan's  letter  fell  from  her  lap  into 
the  fender.  She  picked  it  up,  crying,  "Oh,  my  baby,  how  little 
I  care  for  you!"  and  struck  herself  on  the  forehead  as  she 
reflected  how  many  expedients  would  have  suggested  them- 
selves to  her  if  it  had  been  Richard  who  was  being  maltreated 
down  at  Dawlish.  She  sat  down  and  wrote  a  lying  letter  to 
Peacey,  threatening  him  with  the  disclosure  of  the  secret  she 
did  not  know,  and  then,  because  the  grandfather  clock  twanged 
out  three  and  she  knew  the  post  was  .collected  five  minutes 
past,  she  ran  out  into  the  windy  afternoon  bareheaded.  The 
last  part  of  the  distance,  down  the  High  Street,  she  ran,  but 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  357 

she  got  into  the  grocer's  shop  too  late  and  found  Mr.  Hemming 
just  about  to  seal  the  bag.  "Oh,  Mr.  Hemming !"  she  gasped. 
The  three  women  in  the  shop  turned  round  and  looked  at  her 
curiously,  and  she  perceived  that  if  she  betrayed  her  agony 
now  she  would  lose  all  the  ground  she  had  gained  during  the 
past  few  years  by  her  affectation  of  well-being.  If  it  leaked 
out,  as  it  certainly  would,  unless  she  at  once  lowered  the  pres- 
ent temperature  of  the  moment,  that  a  few  days  after  Harry's 
death  she  had  been  excitedly  sending  a  letter  to  Peacey,  the 
village  people  would  go  through  her  story  all  over  again  to  try 
to  find  out  what  this  could  possibly  mean,  and  would  remem- 
ber that  it  was  a  tragedy,  and  once  more  she  would  be  the 
victim  of  that  hostility  which  the  happy  feel  for  the  unhappy. 
Yet  she  found  herself  making  a  queer  distraught  mask  of  her 
face  and  saying  theatrically,  "Oh,  Mr.  Hemming,  please,  please 
let  this  letter  go  .  .  ."  and,  when  he  granted  the  favour,  as 
she  knew  quite  well  he  would  have  done  to  just  half  as  much 
imploration,  she  went  out  of  the  shop  breathing  heavily  and 
audibly. 

"Why  am  I  like  this?"  she  asked  herself.  "Ah,  I  see!  So 
that  I  can  say  afterwards  that  I  did  everything  I  could  to  get 
him  back,  even  to  the  extent  of  turning  people  against  me, 
and  can  settle  down  to  being  happy  with  Richard.  Oh,  Roger, 
I  am  a  cold  devil  to  you.  .  .  ."  She  was  indeed.  For  when 
she  received  Peacey's  letter  saying  blandly  that  there  was  noth- 
ing in  his  life  of  which  he  need  feel  ashamed,  and  realised  that 
the  game  was  up  and  she  was  powerless,  she  was  glad.  She 
sat  down  and  wrote  her  bluffing  answer,  a  warning  that  if  the 
child  was  not  sent  back  within  a  week  she  would  come  down 
to  Dawlish  and  fetch  it,  with  an  infamous  fear  lest  it  might 
be  efficacious.  And  when  Peacey  wrote  back,  pointing  out 
that  Richard  was  legally  his  child,  and  that  he  would  be  taken 
out  of  her  custody  if  she  went  on  making  this  fuss  about 
Roger,  she  chose  immediately.  She  tore  the  letter  into  small 
pieces  and  dropped  them  into  the  heart  of  the  fire,  and  knelt 
by  the  grate  until  the  flame  died.  Though  the  boy  was  still 
out  at  school  she  lifted  up  her  voice  and  cried  out  seductively, 
serenely,  "Richard!  Richard!" 

What  is  this  thing,  the  soul?     It  blows  hot,  it  blows  cold, 


358  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

it  reels  with  the  drunkenness  of  exaltation  for  some  slight 
event  no  denser  than  a  dream,  it  hoods  itself  with  penitence 
for  some  act  that  the  mind  can  hardly  remember;  and  yet  its 
judgments  are  the  voice  of  absolute  wisdom.  She  did  not 
care  at  all  for  Roger.  When  at  nights  she  used  to  see  in  the 
blackness  the  little  figure  standing  in  his  shirt,  beating  the 
dark  air  with  his  fists,  as  Susan  told  her  he  used  to  do  when 
Peacey  woke  him  suddenly  out  of  his  sleep  to  frighten  him,  her 
pity  was  flavourless  and  abstract.  That  she  had  unwittingly 
sent  the  child  to  its  doom  caused  her  no  earthquake  of  remorse 
but  a  storm  of  annoyance.  Yet  she  knew  every  hour  of  the 
day  that  her  soul  had  taken  a  decision  to  mourn  the  child  in 
some  way  that  would  hurt  her. 

One  afternoon,  a  month  or  so  after  their  happy,  lonely 
Christmas,  when  she  was  playing  balls  in  the  garden  with 
Richard,  the  postman  came  up  and  handed  her  another  letter 
from  Susan  Rodney.  Though  Peacey  had  forbidden  her  to 
write  to  Susan  Rodney,  so  that  she  had  never  been  able  to 
explain  why  she  did  not  come  and  fetch  Roger,  he  allowed 
Susan  to  write  to  her.  Weekly  Marion  received  letters  curs- 
ing her  cruelly  in  not  coming,  written  in  an  honest  writing 
that  made  them  hurt  the  more.  She  took  it  and  smiled  in  the 
postman's  face.  "Well,  how  is  Mrs.  Brown  getting  on  with 
the  new  baby  ?"  When  he  had  gone  she  gave  it  to  Richard  and 
told  him  to  go  and  drop  it  in  the  kitchen  fire.  While  he  was 
away  she  stood  and  stared  down  at  the  acid  green  of  the  winter 
grass,  and  wondered  what  she  had  missed  by  not  reading  the 
letter,  what  story  of  blows  delivered  cunningly  here  and  there 
so  that  they  did  not  mark,  or  of  petting  that  skilfully  led  up  to 
a  sudden  feint  of  terrifying  temper;  and  suddenly  she  was 
conscious  of  a  fret  in  the  air,  and  said  wonderingly,  "It  is 
far  too  early  for  the  Spring.  We  are  hardly  into  February 
yet."  But  the  fret  had  been  not  in  the  air  but  in  herself,  and 
the  change  of  season  it  had  foreboded  had  been  in  her  own 
soul. 

That  very  night  she  had  begun  to  have  bad  dreams.  Twice 
before  the  dawn  she  was  stoned  down  Roothing  High  Street, 
even  as  seven  years  before  men  looked  at  her  from  behind 
glazed,  amused  masks;  and  she  had  put  up  her  hand  to  her 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  359 

head  and  found  that  a  stone  had  drawn  blood ;  and  Mr.  Goode's 
kind  voice  said  something  about,  "A  bit  of  boys'  fun,  Mr. 
Peacey,"  and  she  had  stared  before  her  at  a  black,  broadclothed 
bulk.  In  the  morning  she  woke  sweating  like  an  overdriven 
horse,  and  said  to  herself,  "This  is  the  worst  night  I  have  spent 
in  all  my  life.  Pray  God  I  may  never  spend  another  like  it." 

But  henceforward  half  her  nights  were  to  be  like  that.  By 
day  her  soul  walked  like  a  peacock  on  its  green  lawn,  proudly, 
pompously,  struttingly,  because  she  was  the  mother  of  this 
gorgeous  son.  There  was  no  moment  of  her  waking  life  that 
he  did  not  gild,  for  either  he  had  not  long  gone  out  and  had 
turned  at  the  gate  to  wave  good-bye  with  a  gesture  so  dear 
that  when  she  thought  of  it  she  dug  her  nails  into  her  palms 
in  an  agony  of  tenderness,  or  he  was  just  coming  back  and  she 
must  get  something  ready  for  him.  Even  after  he  had  gone 
to  school  he  built  her  a  bulwark  against  misery  which  endured 
till  the  night  fell,  for  in  the  few  hours  that  remained  after 
she  had  finished  the  work  she  had  now  undertaken  on  the  farm 
she  read  his  letters  over  and  over  again.  They  were  queer 
and  disturbing  and  delicious  letters,  and  they  hinted  that  there 
was  a  content  in  their  relationship  which  had  never  yet  been 
put  into  words,  for  they  were  full  of  records  of  his  successes 
in  class  and  at  games. 

Now  he  had  that  complete  lack  of  satisfaction  in  his  own 
performance  which  superficial  people  think  to  be  modesty, 
though  it  springs  instead  from  the  sword-stiff  extreme  of 
pride;  when  he  made  his  century  in  a  school  match  he  was 
galled  by  the  knowledge  that  he  was  not  as  good  a  player  as 
Ranji,  and  when  he  was  head  of  the  science  side  his  pleasure 
was  mitigated  to  nearly  nothing  by  his  sense  that  still  he  did 
not  know  as  much  about  these  things  as  Lord  Kelvin.  That 
he  gave  her  every  detail  of  all  his  successes  meant,  she  began 
to  suspect,  that  he  knew  they  were  both  under  a  ban,  and  that 
he  was  handing  her  these  evidences  of  his  superiority  over 
the  other  people  as  an  adjutant  of  a  banished  leader  might 
hand  him  arrows  to  shoot  down  on  the  city  that  had  exiled 
him.  When  he  was  home  for  the  holidays  he  said  nothing  that 
confirmed  this  suspicion,  but  she  noticed  that  only  when  he 
was  with  her  was  his  mouth  limpid  and  confident  as  a  boy's 


360  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

should  be;  in  the  presence  of  others  he  pressed  his  upper  lip 
down  on  his  lower  so  that  it  looked  thin,  which  it  was  not, 
with  an  air  of  keeping  a  secret  before  enemies.  She  loved 
this  sense  of  being  entrenched  quite  alone  with  him  in  a  fort- 
ress of  love.  She  would  not  have  chosen  another  destiny,  for 
she  did  not  think  that  she  would  ever  have  liked  ordinary  people 
even  if  they  had  been  nice  to  her. 

But  that  was  only  her  daylight  destiny.  In  the  night  she 
staggered  down  Roothing  High  Street  under  stones,  or  sat  in 
the  brown  sunshine  of  the  dusty  room  and  watched  Peacey 
stroking  his  fat  thigh  and  talking  of  his  dear  dead  mother; 
or  felt  his  weight  thresh  down  on  her  like  the  end  of  the 
world ;  or  took  into  her  arms  for  the  first  time  the  limp  body 
of  the  other  child.  It  did  not  avail  her  if  she  fought  her  way 
out  of  sleep,  for  then  she  would  continue  to  re-endure  the 
scene  in  a  frenzy  of  memory,  and  either  way  she  knew  the 
agony  that  the  experience  had  given  her  with  its  first  prick, 
coupled  with  the  woe  that  came  of  knowing  that  those  things 
would  go  on  and  on,  until  in  the  end  a  little  figure  in  a  night- 
shirt beat  the  dark  with  its  fists. 

For  a  time  she  found  solace  in  thinking  that  perhaps  she 
was  expiating  her  involuntary  sin  in  hating  her  child,  and  in- 
deed it  seemed  to  her  that  when  she  evoked  that  little  figure 
she  felt  something  in  her  heart  which,  if  she  and  the  frozen 
substance  of  her  were  triturated  a  little  more  by  torture,  might 
grow  into  that  proper  loving  pain  which  she  coveted  more 
than  any  pleasure.  But  that  process,  if  it  ever  had  begun,  was 
stopped  when  Richard  was  fifteen. 

It  happened,  two  days  after  he  had  come  home  for  the  sum- 
mer holidays,  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  night  she  had  again 
been  stoned  and  that  she  had  started  up,  crying  out,  "Harry! 
Harry!"  She  heard  the  latch  of  the  door  lift,  and  someone 
stood  on  her  threshold  breathing  angrily.  Half  asleep,  she 
mumbled,  "Harry,  it  can't  be  you?  ..."  A  voice  answered 
haltingly,  "No,"  and  a  match  scratched,  and  Richard  crossed 
the  room  and  lit  the  candle  by  her  bedside.  She  could  not  see 
him,  for  the  light  was  too  strong  after  the  darkness,  and  she 
could  no>  quite  climb  out  of  her  dream,  but  she  rocked  her 
head  from  side  to  side  and  muttered,  "Go  to  bed,  I'm  all  right, 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  361 

all  right."  But  he  sat  down  on  her  bed  and  took  her  hand  in 
his,  and  said  sullenly,  "You've  been  calling  out  for  my  father. 
Why  are  you  doing  that  ?"  She  whimpered,  "Nothing.  I  was 
only  dreaming."  But  he  went  on,  terrifying  her  through  her 
veil  of  sleep.  "I  know  all  about  it,  mother.  The  other  boys 
told  me  about  it.  And  Goodtart  said  something  once."  His 
hand  tightened  on  hers.  "You  used  to  meet  him  up  at  that 
temple."  For  a  minute  he  paused,  and  seemed  to  be  shud- 
dering, and  then  persisted,  "What  is  it?  Why  do  you  cry 
almost  every  night?  I've  heard  you  ever  so  often.  You've 
got  to  tell  me  what's  the  matter." 

She  stiffened  under  the  fierce  loving  rage  in  his  tone  and 
stayed  rigid  for  a  moment.  Through  her  drowsiness  there 
was  floating  some  idea  that  the  salvation  of  her  soul  depended 
on  keeping  stiff  and  silent,  but  because  she  was  still  netted  in 
the  dream,  and  the  beating  of  the  tin  cans  distracted  her,  she 
could  not  follow  it  and  grasp  it,  and  soon  she  desired  to  tell 
him  as  much  as  she  had  always  before  feared  it.  In  her  long 
reticence  she  felt  like  a  suspended  wave  forbidden  to  break  on 
the  shore  by  a  magician's  spell,  and  she  lifted  her  hands  im- 
ploringly to  him  so  that  he  bent  down  and  kissed  her.  It  was 
as  if  the  heat  of  his  lips  dissolved  some  seal  upon  her  mouth, 
and  she  sobbed  out:  "It's  when  the  boy  touches  me  with  a 
stick  that  I  can't  bear  it  1" 

"What  boy  did  that?" 

"I  think  it  was  Ned  Turk.  When  I  was  stoned  down  Rooth- 
ing  High  Street." 

"Mother,  mother.    Tell  me  about  that." 

She  wailed  out  everything,  while  the  hand  that  held  hers 
gradually  became  wet  with  sweat.  At  the  end  of  her  telling 
she  drew  her  hair  across  her  face  and  looked  up  at  him  through 
it.  "Have  I  lost  him?"  she  wondered.  "Harry  did  not  like 
me  so  much  after  horrible  things  had  happened  to  me."  Then 
as  she  looked  at  him  her  heart  leaped  at  the  sight  of  his  beauty 
and  his  young  maleness,  and  she  cried  out  to  herself,  "Well, 
whether  I  have  lost  him  or  not,  I  have  borne  him !" 

But  she  had  him  always,  for  presently  he  bent  forward  and 
laid  his  face  against  her  hand,  and  began  to  kiss  it.  Then  he 
pulled  himself  up  and  sat  hunched  as  if  the  story  he  had  heard 


362  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

were  a  foe  that  might  leap  at  him,  and  almost  shouted  in  his 
queer  voice,  which  was  now  breaking,  "Mother,  I  would  like 
to  kill  them  all!  Oh,  you  poor  little  mother!  I  love  you  so, 
I  love  you  so.  .  .  ."  He  buried  his  face  in  the  clothes  for  one 
instant  and  seemed  about  to  weep,  and  then,  conscious  of  her 
tears,  slipped  his  arm  behind  her  and  raised  her  up,  and  cov- 
ered her  with  kisses,  and  muttered  little  loving,  comforting 
things.  She  crooned  with  relief,  and  until  the  sky  began  to 
lighten  and  she  had  to  send  him  back  to  bed,  sobbed  out  all 
the  misery  she  had  so  long  kept  to  herself.  He  did  not  want 
to  go.  That  she  liked  also ;  and  afterwards  she  slipped  softly 
into  dreamless  sleep. 

Yet  strangely,  for  surely  it  was  right  that  a  mother  should 
be  solaced  by  her  son?  There  shot  through  her  mind  just 
before  she  slept  a  pang  of  guilt  as  if  she  had  done  some  act  as 
sensual  as  bruising  ripe  grapes  against  her  mouth.  How  can 
one  know  what  to  do  in  this  life?  Surely  it  is  so  natural  to 
escape  out  of  hell  that  it  cannot  be  unlawful;  and  by  calling 
"Richard !  Richard !"  she  could  now  bring  her  worst  and  long- 
est dream  to  an  end.  Surely  she  had  the  right  to  make  Richard 
love  her ;  and  she  knew  that  by  the  disclosure  of  her  present 
and  past  agonies  she  was  binding  his  manhood  to  her  as 
she  had  bound  his  boyhood  and  his  childhood.  Yet  after 
every  time  that  she  had  called  him  to  save  her  from  a  bad 
dream  she  had  this  conviction  of  guilt.  She  could  not  under- 
stand what  it  meant.  It  was  partly  born  of  her  uneasy  sense 
that  in  these  nights  she  was  unwillingly  giving  Richard  a  false 
impression  of  her  destiny  which  laid  the  blame  too  heavily  on 
poor  Harry;  because  she  could  not  yet  tell  the  boy  of  all 
Peacey's  villainy,  he  was  plainly  concluding  that  what  had 
broken  her  was  Harry's  desertion.  But  it  was  a  profounder 
offence  than  this  that  she  was  in  some  way  committing.  She 
did  not  know  what  it  was,  but  it  robbed  her  torment  of  any 
expiatory  quality  that  it  might  ever  have  had.  For  now,  when 
she  evoked  the  little  figure  in  a  nightshirt  beating  the  dark  with 
its  fists,  she  felt  nothing.  There  was  not  the  smallest  promise 
of  pain  in  her  heart.  As  much  as  ever  Roger  was  an  orphan. 

But  worst  of  all  it  was  to  have  had  the  opportunity  to  settle 
this  matter  for  once  and  for  all  and  to  expunge  all  evil,  and  to 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  363 

have  missed  it.  For  Roger  came  back.  Richard  was  seventeen, 
and  had  gone  to  sea.  How  proud  she  had  felt  the  other  day 
when  Ellen  had  asked  why  he  had  gone  to  sea !  He  might  do 
many  things  for  his  wife,  but  nothing  comparable  to  that 
irascible  feat  of  forcing  life's  hand  and  leaping  straight  from 
boyhood  into  manhood  by  leaving  school  and  becoming  a  sailor 
at  sixteen  so  that  he  should  be  admirable  to  his  mother.  Dur- 
ing the  holidays,  when  he  formed  the  intention,  she  had 
watched  him  well  from  under  her  lids  and  had  guessed  that 
his  pride  was  disgusted  at  his  adolescent  clumsiness  and  moodi- 
ness  and  that  he  wanted  to  hide  himself  from  her  until  he  felt 
himself  uncriticisable  in  his  conduct  of  adult  life.  She  had 
had  to  alter  that  opinion  to  include  another  movement  of  his 
soul  when,  as  they  travelled  together  to  London  the  day  he 
joined  his  ship,  he  turned  to  her  and  said:  "My  father  never 
saw  any  fighting,  did  he  ?"  She  had  met  his  eyes  with  wonder, 
and  he  had  pressed  the  point  rather  roughly.  "He  was  in  the 
army,  wasn't  he?  But  he  didn't  see  any  fighting,  did  he?" 
She  had  stammered:  "No,  I  don't  think  so."  And  he  had 
turned  away  with  a  little  stiff-lipped  smile  of  satisfaction.  That 
had  distressed  her,  but  she  had  a  vague  and  selfish  feeling  that 
she  would  imperil  something  if  she  argued  the  point.  But 
whatever  his  motives  for  going  had  been,  she  was  glad  that 
he  went,  for  though  she  herself  was  not  interested  in  anything 
outside  her  relationships,  she  knew  that  travel  would  afford 
him  a  thousand  excitements  that  would  evoke  his  magnificence. 
The  Spring  day  when  he  was  expected  to  come  home  she  had 
found  her  joy  impossible  to  support  under  the  eyes  of  the 
servant  and  the  farm-men,  for  she  had  grown  very  sly  about 
her  fellow-men,  and  knew  that  it  was  best  to  hide  happiness 
lest  someone  jealous  should  put  out  their  hand  to  destroy  it. 
So  she  had  gone  down  to  the  orchard  and  sat  in  the  crook  of 
a  tree,  looking  out  at  an  opal  estuary  where  a  frail  rainstorm 
spun  like  a  top  in  the  sunshine  before  the  variable  April  gusts. 
She  wondered  how  his  dear  brown  face  would  look  now  he 
had  outfaced  danger  and  had  been  burned  by  strange  suns. 
She  had  heard  suddenly  the  sound  of  steps  coming  down  the 
path,  and  she  had  turned  in  ecstasy ;  but  there  was  nobody  there 
but  a  pale  young  man  who  looked  like  one  of  the  East-End 


364  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

trippers  who  all  through  the  summer  months  persistently  tres- 
passed on  the  farm  lands.  As  he  saw  her  he  stopped,  and  she 
was  about  to  order  him  to  leave  the  orchard  by  the  nearest 
gate  when  he  flapped  his  very  large  hands  and  cried  out, 
"Mummie !  Mummie !"  There  was  a  whistling  quality  in  the 
cry  that  instantly  convinced  her.  She  drew  herself  taut  and 
prepared  to  deal  with  him  as  a  spirited  woman  deals  with  a 
blackmailer,  but  as  he  ran  towards  her,  piping  exultantly, 
"Now  I'm  sixteen  I  can  say  who  I  want  to  live  with — the 
vicar  says  so/'  she  remembered  that  he  was  her  son,  and  suf- 
fered herself  to  be  folded  in  his  arms,  which  embraced  her 
closely  but  without  suggestion  of  strength. 

That  day,  at  least,  she  had  played  her  part  according  to 
her  duty:  she  had  corrected  so  far  as  possible  the  sin  of  her 
inner  being.  It  had  not  been  so  very  difficult,  for  Roger  had 
shown  himself  just  as  goldenhearted  as  he  had  been  as  a  child. 
He  would  not  speak  of  the  years  of  ill-treatment  from  which 
he  had  emerged,  save  to  say  tediously,  over  and  over  again, 
with  a  revolting,  grateful  whine  in  his  voice,  how  hard  Aunt 
Susan  had  worked  to  keep  the  peace  when  father  had  one  of 
his  bad  turns.  It  appeared  that  for  the  last  two  years  he  had 
been  an  apprentice  in  a  draper's  shop  at  Exeter,  and  though 
there  he  had  been  underfed  and  overworked  and  imprisoned 
from  the  light  and  air,  all  that  he  complained  of  was  that  the 
"talk  was  bad."  Tears  came  into  his  light  eyes  when  he  said 
that,  and  she  perceived  that  there  was  nothing  in  his  soul  save 
sickly,  deserving  innocence,  and  of  course  this  inexterminable 
love  for  her.  There  would  never  be  any  end  to  that.  All 
through  the  midday  meal  he  kept  on  putting  down  his  fork  with 
lumps  of  meat  sticking  on  it  and  would  say  whistlingly :  "Ooh, 
mummie,  d'you  know,  I  used  to  think  it  must  be  my  imagina- 
tion you  had  such  a  wonderful  head  of  hair.  I  don't  think 
I've  ever  seen  such  another  head  of  hair." 

But  he  was  so  good,  so  good.  He  said  to  her  in  the  after- 
noon as  they  walked  along  the  lanes  to  Roothing  High  Street, 
a  scene  the  memory  of  which  he  had  apparently  cherished  sen- 
timentally, "You  know,  mummie,  when  I  told  Aunt  Susan  that 
I  was  going  to  run  away  and  find  you,  she  said  that  I  had 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  365 

better  try  my  luck,  but  I  mustn't  be  disappointed  if  you  didn't 
want  me.  But  I  knew  you  would,  mummie.  .  .  ." 

Her  heart  was  wrung,  not  so  much  by  his  faith  in  her,  which 
was  indeed  a  kind  of  idiocy,  as  by  the  sense  that,  if  Susan 
thought  he  had  better  try  his  luck  with  her,  his  life  with  his 
father  must  have  been  a  hell,  and  that  he  was  not  complaining 
of  it.  Flushing,  she  muttered,  "I'm  glad  you  knew  how  I  felt, 
dear,"  and  all  day  she  did  not  flinch.  When  it  was  past  eight, 
and  Richard  had  not  come,  she  cut  for  Roger  the  pastry  that 
she  had  baked  for  the  other,  and  laughed  across  the  table  at 
him  as  they  ate;  and  when  the  door  opened  and  the  son  she 
loved  moved  silently  into  the  room,  looking  sleepy  and  secret 
as  he  always  did  wlien  he  was  greatly  excited,  she  stood  up 
smiling,  and  loyally  cried,  "Look  who's  here,  Richard!"  She 
thought  as  she  said  it  how  like  she  was  to  a  wife  who  defiantly 
faces  her  husband  when  one  of  her  relations  whom  he  does 
not  like  has  come  to  tea,  and  she  tried  to  be  amused  by  the 
resemblance.  But  Richard's  eyes  moved  to  the  stranger's  gap- 
ing, welcoming  face,  hardened  with  contempt,  and  returned 
to  her  face.  He  became  very  pale.  It  evidently  seemed  to  him 
the  grossest  indecency  on  her  part  to  allow  a  third  person  to 
be  present  at  their  meetings,  and  indeed  she  herself  felt  faint, 
as  she  had  used  to  do  when  she  met  Harry  is  front  of  other 
people.  But  she  pulled  out  of  herself  a  clucking  cry  that 
might  have  come  from  some  happy  mother  without  a  history : 
"Richard !  don't  you  see  it's  Roger !" 

Surely,  after  having  been  able  to  keep  the  secret  of  what  she 
felt  for  him  through  that  torturing  moment  when  she  found 
Richard's  displeasure,  she  had  the  right  to  expect  that  all 
would  go  well.  It  was  loathsome  having  him  in  the  house, 
and  she  and  Richard  were  hardly  ever  alone.  But  her  bad 
dreams  left  her.  This  was  life  simple  as  the  Christians  said 
it  was,  in  which  one  might  hug  serenity  by  the  conscientious 
performance  of  a  disagreeable  duty.  Yet  there  came  a  day, 
about  three  weeks  after  his  coming,  when  Roger  sat  glumly 
at  the  midday  meal  and  did  not  talk,  as  he  had  ordinarily 
done,  about  the  chaps  at  Exeter,  and  how  there  was  one  chap 
who  could  imitate  birds'  calls  so  that  you  couldn't  hardly  tell 


366  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  difference,  and  how  another  chap  had  an  uncle  who  was  a 
big  grocer  and  used  to  send  him  a  box  of  crystallised  fruit  at 
Christmas;  and  immediately  the  meal  was  finished  he  rose 
and  left  the  room,  instead  of  waiting  about  and  saying,  "I 
s'pose  you  aren't  going  for  a  walk,  are  you,  mummie?"  Re- 
lieved by  his  departure,  she  had  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and 
smiled  up  at  Richard,  saying,  "How  brown  you  are  still!" 
when  suddenly  there  had  flashed  across  her  a  recollection  of 
how  Roger's  shoulders  had  looked  as  he  went  out  of  the  room, 
and  she  started  up  to  run  out  and  find  him.  He  was  in  one 
of  the  outhouses,  clumsily  trying  to  carpenter  something  that 
was  to  be  a  surprise  to  somebody.  He  did  not  look  up  when 
she  came  in,  though  he  said  with  a  funny  lift  in  his  voice, 
"Hello,  mummy!"  She  stood  over  him,  watching  his  work 
till  she  could  not  bear  to  look  at  his  warty  hands  any  longer, 
and  then  asked:  "Roger,  dear,  is  there  anything  the  matter?" 
She  spoke  to  him  always  without  any  character  in  her  phrases, 
like  a  mother  in  books.  He  mumbled,  "Nothing,  mummie," 
but  would  not  lift  his  head ;  and  after  a  gulping  minute  whim- 
pered :  "I  want  to  go  back  to  the  shop."  "Back  to  the  shop, 
dear?  But  I  thought  you  hated  it.  Darling,  what  is  the  mat- 
ter?" He  remained  silent,  so  she  took  his  face  between  her 
hands  and  looked  into  his  eyes.  Perhaps  that  had  not  been  a 
very  wise  thing  to  do. 

Marion  had  dropped  her  hands  and  gone  back  to  Richard, 
and  said  with  simulated  fierceness:  "You  haven't  done  any- 
thing to  Roger  that  would  make  him  think  that  we  don't  like 
having  him  here?"  He  glanced  sharply  at  her  and  recognised 
that  their  destiny  was  turning  ugly  in  their  hands,  and  he  an- 
swered: "Of  course  not.  I  wouldn't  do  anything  to  a  chap 
who's  been  through  such  a  rotten  time."  She  thought,  with 
shame,  that  if  his  face  had  become  cruel  at  her  question,  and 
he  had  answered  that  he  thought  it  was  time  the  other  went, 
she  would  have  bowed  to  his  decision,  because  he  was  her 
king,  and  she  realised  that  it  was  no  wonder  that  Roger  had 
found  out.  That  moment  of  which  she  was  so  proud  because 
she  had  said  heartily,  "Richard,  don't  you  see  it's  Roger?" 
without  showing  by  any  wild  yearning  of  the  eye  that  she 
would  have  given  anything  to  be  alone  with  him,  had  been 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  367 

instantly  followed  by  a  betrayal.  For  when  he  had  lifted  his 
lips  from  her  cheek  and  had  turned  to  greet  Roger  with  cour- 
tesy that  was  at  once  kind  and  insincere,  he'  had  left  one  hand 
resting  on  her  shoulder  as  it  had  been  when  they  embraced, 
and  his  thumb  stretched  out  to  press  on  the  pulse  that  beat  at 
the  base  of  her  throat.  If  she  had  been  completely  loyal  she 
would  have  moved;  but  she  had  stood  quite  still,  letting  him 
mark  how  she  was  not  calm  and  rejoicing  at  all,  but  shaken 
as  by  a  storm  with  her  disgust  at  this  loathsome  presence.  His 
hand  had  relaxed  and  he  had  passed  it  caressingly  up  her  neck. 
She  had  let  herself  sigh  deeply;  she  might  as  well  have  said, 
"I  am  so  glad  you  understand  I  hate  him."  That  was  the  first 
of  a  thousand  such  betrayals.  The  words  said  between  souls 
are  not  heard  by  the  eavesdropping  ear,  but  the  soul  also  can 
eavesdrop,  and  tells  in  its  time.  That  morning  there  must 
have  come  a  moment  to  the  poor  pale  boy,  as  he  worked  at  his 
silly  present  in  the  little  shed,  when  it  was  plain  to  him  that 
the  mother  and  the  brother  whom  he  had  thought  so  kind  were 
vulpine  with  love  of  each  other,  vulpine  with  hate  of  him. 

There  was  no  disputing  his  discovery,  since  it  was  true. 
The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  try  to  arrange  some  way  of  life 
for  him  in  which  he  would  have  a  chance  to  become  an  inde- 
pendent person  who  could  form  new  and  unspoiled  relation- 
ships. It  was,  of  course,  out  of  the  question  to  send  him  back 
to  the  shop,  but  the  problem  of  disposing  of  him  was  one  that 
raised  innumerable  difficulties  which  Marion  was  the  less  able 
to  face  because  her  bad  dreams  had  begun  again.  He  had  so 
little  schooling  that  it  was  impossible  to  send  him  in  for  any 
profession.  He,  himself,  who  was  touchingly  grateful  because 
they  were  not  sending  him  back  to  the  shop,  chose  to  be  trained 
as  a  veterinary  surgeon,  and  he  was  apprenticed  to  old  Mr. 
Taylor  at  Canewdon.  But  it  turned  out  that  though  he  had 
a  passionate  love  for  animals  he  had  no  power  over  them. 
After  he  had  been  chased  round  a  field  three  times  and  severely 
bitten  by  a  stallion  with  whom  he  had  sat  up  for  two  nights, 
Mr.  Taylor  pronounced  that  it  was  hopeless  and  sent  him 
home.  They  tried  him  as  a  chemist's  assistant  next,  and  he 
did  well  for  ten  months,  until  there  was  that  awful  trouble 
about  the  prescription.  There  had  been  nothing  to  do  after 


368  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

that  save  to  put  him  to  work  as  a  clerk  and  give  him  an  al- 
lowance that  with  his  wages  would  enable  him  to  live  in  com- 
fort and  try  to  seem  glad  when  he  came  home  for  his  holidays. 

For  he  was  still  not  quite  sure.  His  suspicion  that  his 
mother  did  not  love  him  was  so  strong  that,  half  because  his 
sweetness  of  nature  made  him  not  want  to  bother  her  if  his 
presence  really  gave  her  pain,  and  half  because  he  could  not 
bear  to  put  the  matter  to  a  test,  he  would  not  take  a  situation 
anywhere  near  Roothing.  But  he  liked  to  come  home  for  his 
fortnight's  holidays  at  Christmas,  and  sit  by  the  hearth  and 
look  at  his  wonderful  mother  and  comfort  himself  by  think- 
ing that  if  they  were  so  kind  he  must  have  been  wrong.  Best 
of  all,  perhaps,  he  liked  the  Bank  Holidays,  when  he  travelled 
half  the  day  in  a  packed  carriage  to  get  there  and  had  only  a 
few  hours  to  spend  with  her;  it  was  easier  to  keep  things 
going  when  he  stayed  such  a  short  time,  and  there  was  less 
misgiving  on  his  face  when  he  waved  good-bye  from  the  car- 
riage window  than  tfiere  was  after  any  of  his  longer  visits. 
But  so  far  as  she  was  concerned,  all  his  visits  were  in  essence 
the  same,  in  that  at  the  end  of  each  of  them  she  was  left  stand- 
ing on  the  platform  with  her  eyes  following  the  retreating 
train  and  a  fear  coiling  tighter  round  her  heart.  She  had 
always  known,  of  course,  that  this  life  for  which  she  was  re- 
sponsible, and  by  whose  fate  she  would  be  judged,  would  blun- 
der to  ruin,  and  as  the  years  went  on  there  came  intimations, 
faint  as  everything  connected  with  Roger,  but  nevertheless  con- 
vincing, which  confirmed  her  dread.  He  was  always  changing 
his  situation  and  moving  from  suburb  to  suburb,  for  he  would 
never  take  a  job  in  the  city,  because  the  noise  and  crowds  in 
the  narrow  streets  frightened  him. 

From  a  bludgeoned  look  about  him,  which  became  more  and 
more  marked,  she  was  sure  that  he  was  being  constantly  dis- 
missed for  incompetence,  but  he  would  never  admit  that.  "I'm 
a  funny  chap,  mummie,"  he  would  say  bravely,  "I  can't  bear 
being  shut  up  in  the  same  place  for  long."  And  she  would 
nod  understandingly  and  say,  "Do  as  you  like,  dear,  as  long 
as  you're  happy,"  because  he  wanted  her  to  believe  him.  But 
she  would  be  sick  with  visions  of  this  blanched,  misbegotten 
thing  standing  smiling  and  wriggling  under  the  gibes  of  normal 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  369 

and  brutal  men  throughout  the  inexorably  long  workday,  and 
then  creeping  to  some  mean  room  where  it  would  sit  and  snivel 
till  the  night  fell  across  the  small-paned  window.  And  through 
the  sallow  mist  of  her  unavailing  and  repugnant  pity  there 
flashed  suddenly  the  lightning  of  certainty  that  some  day  the 
thing  would  happen.  But  what  thing?  She  would  put  her 
hand  to  her  head,  but  she  was  never  able  to  remember. 

And  when  he  was  twenty-two  and  living  at  Watford  some- 
thing did  happen;  though  it  was  not,  she  instantly  recognised, 
the  thing.  She  herself  had  never  been  angered  by  it,  although 
she  hated  telling  Richard  about  it,  but  had  instantly  perceived 
the  pathos  of  the  situation ;  her  mind  had  always  done  its  duty 
by  Roger.  It  told,  of  course,  the  most  moving  story  of  lone- 
liness and  humiliation  and  hunger  for  respect  and  love  that 
he  should  have  represented  himself  to  the  girl  with  whom  he 
had  been  walking  out  as  a  man  of  wealth  and  that  after  a  rap- 
turous afternoon  at  a  flower  show  he  should  have  taken  her  to 
the  best  jeweller's  in  Watford  and  given  her  a  diamond  brooch 
and  earrings,  for  which,  even  with  his  allowance,  he  could  not 
possibly  pay. 

The  visit  to  Watford  she  had  to  make  to  clear  things  up 
had  seemed  at  first  the  happiest  event  of  all  her  relationship 
with  Roger.  It  had  been  unpleasant  to  find  him  grey  with 
weeping  and  disgrace,  but  there  had  been  victory  in  forcing 
herself  to  comfort  him  with  an  exact  imitation  of  the  note  of 
love.  It  had  been  ridiculous  to  face  the  angry  lady  in  the  case, 
who  wore  nodding  poppies  in  her  hat  and  had  an  immense 
rectangular  bust  and  hips  like  brackets,  but  it  was  pleasant  to 
murmur,  "Oh,  but  he  was  speaking  the  truth.  I'm  quite  com- 
fortably off.  I've  come  to  pay  the  jeweller,"  and  watch  the 
look  of  amazement  on  the  hot,  high-coloured  face  giving  place 
to  anger  and  regret  as  it  penetrated  into  her  that  she  had  really 
had  the  chance  of  marrying  a  wealthy  man,  and  that  after  the 
things  she  had  said  that  chance  would  be  hers  no  longer.  Mar- 
ion liked  hurting  the  girl  because  she  had  hurt  Roger.  Marion 
felt  with  satisfaction  that  the  pleasure  was  a  feeling  a  mother 
ought  to  feel. 

She  liked,  too,  going  into  the  jeweller's  shop  and  sitting 
there  under  the  goggling  eyes  of  the  tradesman  and  speaking 


370  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

in  the  right  leisurely  voice  that  she  had  learned  from  her 
lover:  "Yes,  but  I  don't  want  you  to  take  them  back.  I  want 
to  pay  for  them.  There  seems  to  have  been  some  misunder- 
standing. There  is  no  difficulty  about  the  money  at  all.  My 
son  only  wanted  you  to  wait  till  his  quarter's  allowance  came. 
I  have  the  money  here  in  notes.  If  you  would  count  it.  .  .  ." 
She  was  playing  a  mother's  part  well ;  and  she  rejoiced  because 
the  jeweller's  eyes  were  examining  with  approval  and  con- 
viction her  beautiful  clothes.  For  she  had  begun  lately  to 
take  great  pains  over  her  dressing,  partly  because  it  was  pleas- 
ant for  her  who  was  so  smirched  with  criticism  both  from 
within  and  without  to  be  above  reproach  in  any  matter,  but 
mostly  because  she  liked  to  look  well  in  Richard's  eyes;  that 
this  had  served  Roger's  end  seemed  to  lift  from  her  a  part 
of  her  guilt.  She  hurried  back  to  give  Roger  the  receipt,  and 
took  him  in  her  arms  and  rocked  him  as  he  sobbed  out  his 
ridiculous  story:  "Oh,  mummie,  I  never  would  have  done 
it  if  I  hadn't  gone  mad.  You  see,  mummie,  Queenie's  such 
a  glorious  woman.  .  .  ." 

But  the  soul  has  the  keenest  ears  of  any  eavesdropper.  He 
sat  up  suddenly  and  lifted  her  arms  off  his  shoulders  and 
looked  at  her  with  pale,  desperate  eyes.  She  clapped  her  hand 
across  her  face  and  then  took  it  away  again,  and  said  softly: 
"What  is  it,  dear?"  But  he  had  sunk  into  a  stupor,  and  had 
dropped  his  protruding  gaze  on  the  pattern  of  the  oilcloth  on 
the  floor,  which  he  was  tracing  with  the  toe  of  his  boot.  She 
could  get  nothing  out  of  him.  He  obviously  did  not  want  her 
to  stay  two  or  three  days  with  him,  as  she  had  proposed  to  do, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  said  over  and  over  again  as  they 
waited  on  the  platform  for  her  train,  "Mummie,  I  do  love  you, 
mummie.  I  do  love  you.  And  thank  you,  mummie.  .  .  ." 
But  she  knew  that  these  alterations  and  inconsistencies  of  his 
mood  did  not  matter  to  their  lives  any  more  than  the  pitch 
and  roll  of  a  steamer  travelling  through  rough  weather  affects 
its  course.  For  since  that  moment  when  he  had  stared  into 
her  eyes  and  seen  she  did  not  love  him  she  had  known  that 
somewhere,  far  off,  beyond  time  and  space,  there  had  been  set 
a  light  to  the  fuse  of  that  event  which  she  had  always  feared 
...  the  event  that  would  destroy  them  all.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  371 

But  had  it?  For  after  all,  nothing  dreadful  had  happened. 
Roger  had  written  to  her  the  next  day  telling  her  that  he  would 
not  take  his  allowance  any  more  because  he  did  not  think  he 
deserved  it,  and  he  must  try  and  be  a  man  and  shift  for  him- 
self, and  saying  that  he  was  taking  a  situation  in  another  town 
which  he  did  not  name.  That  was  the  last  they  heard  of  him 
for  a  long  time,  for  he  came  no  more  to  Roothing  for  his  holi- 
days..  Presently,  with  an  exultant  sense  of  release,  but  with 
an  increasing  liability  to  bad  dreams,  she  went  abroad  to  join 
Richard,  at  first  at  the  post  he  held  at  the  Romanones  Mines 
in  Andalusia,  and  then  in  Rio  de  Janeiro.  There  she  was 
happy.  She  was  one  of  those  Northerners  to  whom  the  South 
belongs  far  more  truly  than  it  does  to  any  of  its  natives.  For 
over  those  the  sun  has  had  power  since  their  birth,  consuming 
their  marrows  and  evaporating  their  blood  so  that  they  became 
pithless  things  that  have  to  fly  indoors  for  half  the  day  and 
leave  the  Southern  sun  blazing  insolently  on  the  receptive 
Southern  earth.  But  with  blood  cooled  and  nerves  stabilised 
by  youth  spent  on  the  edge  of  the  grey  sea,  she  could  outface 
all  foreign  seasons.  She  could  walk  across  the  silent  plaza 
when  its  dust  lay  dazzling  white  under  the  heat-pale  sky  and 
the  city  slept ;  the  days  of  heavy  rain  and  potent  pervasive 
dampness  pleased  her  by  their  prodigiousness ;  and  when  the 
thunderstorm  planted  vast  momentary  trees  of  lightning  in  the 
night  she  was  pleased,  as  if  she  was  watching  someone  do 
easily  what  she  had  always  impotently  desired  to  do. 

And  Richard  was  so  wonderful  to  watch  in  this  new  setting 
that  matched  his  beauty,  easily  establishing  his  dominion  over 
the  world  as  he  had  established  it  over  her  being  from  the 
moment  of  his  conception.  There  was  a  conflict  raging  in  him 
which,  since  it  never  resulted  in  hesitancy,  but  in  simultaneous 
snatchings  at  life  by  both  of  the  warring  forces,  gave  him  the 
appearance  of  the  calmest  exultation.  He  loved  riding  and 
dancing  and  gambling  so  much  that  his  face  was  cruel  when 
he  did  those  things,  as  if  he  would  kill  anybody  who  tried 
to  interrupt  him  in  his  pleasure.  But  he  gave  the  core  of  his 
passion  to  his  work  and  disciplined  all  his  days  to  the  routine 
of  the  laboratory,  so  that  he  was  always  cool  and  remote  like 
a  priest.  It  gave  him  pleasure  to  be  insolent  as  rich  men  are, 


372  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

but  all  his  insolence  was  in  the  interests  of  fineness  and  hu- 
mility. He  was  ambitious,  so  fastidious  about  the  quality  of 
his  work  that- he  rejected  half  the  world's  offers  to  him.  And 
always  he  turned  aside  from  his  victories  and  smiled  secretively 
at  her,  as  if  they  were  two  exiles  who  had  returned  under  false 
names  to  the  country  that  had  banished  them  and  were  earn- 
ing great*  honours.  She  wished  this  life  could  go  on  for 
ever. 

But  one  day  Richard  came  to  her  as  she  sat  in  the  dense 
sweetness  of  the  flowering  orange  grove  and  tossed  a  letter 
into  her  lap.  She  did  not  open  it  for  a  little,  but  lay  and  looked 
at  Richard  through  her  lashes.  His  swarthiness  was  burned 
by  the  sun,  and  his  body  was  slim  like  an  Indian's  in  his  white 
suit,  and  his  lips  and  his  eyes  were  deceitful  and  satisfied,  as 
they  always  were  when  he  had  been  with  Mariquita  de  Rojas. 
That  did  not  arouse  any  moral  feeling  in  her,  because  she  did 
not  think  of  Richard's  actions  as  being  good  or  bad,  but  only  as 
being  different  in  colour  and  lustre,  like  the  various  kinds  of 
jewels ;  there  are  pearls,  and  there  are  emeralds.  But  it  made 
her  feel  lonely,  and  she  turned  soberly  to  opening  her  letter. 
It  was  from  Roger.  He  was  in  trouble ;  he  had  been  out  of  a 
job  for  some  months;  his  savings  were  gone,  and  the  woman 
was  bothering  for  her  rent;  he  asked  for  help.  At  first  she 
did  not  think  that  she  would  tell  Richard,  but  recognising  that 
that  was  a  subtle  form  of  disloyalty  to  Roger,  she  said  evenly : 
"Richard,  how  can  I  cable  money  to  Roger?  He  wants  it 
quickly.  And,  Richard,  I  think  I  should  go  home  and  look 
after  him."  Richard  had  set  his  eyes  on  the  far  heat-throbbing 
seas  and,  after  a  moment's  quivering  silence,  had  broken  into 
curses.  "Oh,  don't  speak  of  poor  Roger  like  that!"  she  had 
cried  out,  and  he  had  answered  terribly:  "I'm  not  speaking 
of  him;  I'm  speaking  of  my  father,  who  let  you  in  for  all 
this."  She  had  muttered  protestingly,  but  because  of  the  ha- 
tred in  his  face  she  was  not  brave  enough  to  tell  him  that  she 
had  made  her  peace  with  his  father  before  he  died.  Not  even 
for  Harry's  sake  would  she  imperil  the  love  between  her  and 
her  son. 

She  had  gone  home  a  few  months  later,  but,  of  course,  it 
had  been  useless.  Roger  would  never  come  back  to  live  with 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  373 

her.  All  she  could  do  was  to  sit  at  Yaverland's  End,  ready  to 
receive  him  when  he  turned  up,  as  he  always  did  when  he  had 
got  a  new  post,  to  boast  of  how  well  he  was  going  to  do  in 
the  future.  Usually  on  these  occasions  he  brought  her  a  pres- 
ent, something  queer  that  wrung  the  heart  because  it  revealed 
the  humility  of  his  conception  of  the  desirable ;  perhaps  a  glass 
jar  of  preserved  fruit  salad  which  had  evidently  impressed  him 
as  looking  magnificent  when  he  saw  it  in  the  grocer's  shop. 
She  would  kiss  him  gratefully  for  it,  though  every  time  he  came 
back  he  was  more  like  the  grey  and  hopeless  men,  cousins  to 
the  rats,  who  hang  round  cab-ranks  in  cities. 

A  regular  routine  followed  these  visits.  First  he  wrote 
happy  letters  home  every  Sunday ;  then  he  ceased  to  write  so 
often;  then  there  was  silence;  and  then  he  wrote  asking  for 
help,  because  he  had  lost  his  job  and  owed  money  to  the  land- 
lady. Then  she  would  seek  him  out,  wherever  he  was,  and 
pay  the  landlady,  who  was  usually  well  enough  disposed  to- 
wards  Roger  unless  he  had  tried  to  win  her  affections  by  being 
handy  about  the  house,  in  which  case  there  were  extra  charges 
for  the  plumber  and  an  irremovable  feeling  of  exasperation. 
And  she  would  ask  him  to  come  home  with  her,  and  not  bother 
about  working,  but  just  be  a  companion  to  her.  At  that,  how- 
ever, he  always  slowly  shook  his  small,  mouse-coloured  head. 
For  he  was  still  not  quite  sure  .  .  .  and  he  feared  that  he 
might  become  so  if  he  went  back  and  lived  with  her.  As 
things  were,  he  could  interpret  her  prompt  answer  to  his  call 
as  a  sign  of  affection.  Moreover,  he  had  his  poor  little  pride, 
which  was  not  a  negligible  quality;  he  never  would  have  sent 
to  her  for  money  if  he  had  not  felt  so  sorry  for  his  land- 
ladies. To  admit  that  he  could  not  earn  a  bare  living  when  his 
brother  was  making  himself  one  of  the  lords  of  the  earth 
would  have  broken  his  spirit. 

Knowing  these  things,  she  could  not  beg  him  over-much  to 
come  to  her,  but  that  left  dreadfully  little  to  say  in  the  hours 
they  had  to  spend  together  on  these  occasions.  There  fell 
increasingly  moments  of  silence  when,  unreminded  by  his 
piteousness  and  her  obligations  by  the  good  little  pipe  of  her 
voice,  she  was  aware  of  nothing  but  his  unpleasantness.  For 
he  was  becoming  more  and  more  physically  horrible.  As  was 


374  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

natural  when  he  lived  in  these  mean  lodgings,  he  was  beginning 
to  look,  if  not  actually  dirty,  at  least  unwashed ;  and  there  was 
something  else  about  his  appearance,  something  tarnished  and 
disgraceful,  which  she  could  not  understand  till  the  landlady 
at  Leicester  said  to  her :  "I  do  think  it's  such  a  pity  that  a  nice 
young  man  like  Mr.  Peacey  sometimes  don't  take  more  care 
of  himself  like  he  ought  to."  Drunkenness  seemed  to  her 
worse  than  anything  in  the  world,  because  it  meant  the  sur- 
render of  dignity ;  she  would  rather  have  had  her  son  a  mur- 
derer than  a  drunkard.  She  had  wondered  if  the  truth  need 
ever  reach  Richard,  and  there  had  floated  before  her  mind's 
eye  a  newspaper  paragraph :  "Roger  Peacey,  described  as  a 
clerk,  fined  forty  shillings  for  being  drunk  and  disorderly  and 
obstructing  the  police  in  the  course  of  their  duty.  .  .  ."  She 
had  asked  quickly,  "What  is  he  like?  Does  he  get  violent?'* 
The  woman  had  answered:  "Oh  no,  mum;  just  silly-like," 
and  had  laughed,  evidently  at  the  recollection  of  some  ridicu- 
lous scene. 

Oh  God,  oh  God !  When  she  struggled  out  of  her  bad 
dreams  she  awoke  to  something  that,  having  had  this  confirma- 
tion, was  now  no  longer  fear,  but  a  shudder  under  the  breath 
of  a  stooping,  searching  evil.  She  had  always  known  that  the 
existence  of  Richard  and  herself  and  Roger  was  conditional 
upon  their  maintenance  of  a  flawless  behaviour.  There  was 
somewhere  in  the  dark  conspiring  ether  that  wraps  the  world 
an  intention  to  destroy  her  for  her  presumption  in  being  Rich- 
ard's mother  and  him  for  daring  to  be  Richard — an  intention 
that  was  vindictive  against  beauty  and  yet  was  fettered  by  a 
harsh  quality  resembling  justice.  It  could  not  strike  until 
they  themselves  became  tainted  with  unworthiness  and  fit 
for  destruction.  Now  they  had  become  tainted.  She  knew 
that  Roger's  drunkenness  would  be  obscenely  without  dignity ; 
she  knew  that  she  would  side  with  her  triumphant  son  and 
against  her  son  who  needed  her  pity.  They  would  all  be  un- 
worthy and  they  would  all  be  destroyed.  Nothingness  would 
swallow  up  her  Richard.  To  free  herself  from  her  fear  she 
leaped  out  of  bed  and  ran  to  the  window,  and  stared  on  the 
white  creeks  that  lay  under  the  moonlight  among  the  dark 
marsh  islands  with  a  brightness  that  seemed  like  ecstasy,  as 


CHAPTER  vi  THE  JUDGE  375 

if  they  were  receiving  pleasure  from  it.  Her  thoughts  ran 
along  the  hillside  to  the  man  who  lay  high  above  and  excluded 
from  this  glittering  world  in  his  marble  tomb.  "Oh,  Harry," 
she  cried,  "I'm  not  blaming  you,  but  if  you'd  stuck  to  me  it 
would  have  been  so  different.  .  .  ." 

If  he  had  been  loyal  to  her  she  would  have  awakened  now  in 
a  great  house,  with  many  rooms  in  which,  breathing  deeply  and 
evenly,  there  slept  beautiful  people  who  had  begun  their  being 
in  her  womb.  Harry  would  not  have  died  if  he  had  been  with 
her.  The  procreative  genius  of  her  body  would  have  kept  him 
in  life  to  give  her  more.  Her  last-born  child  would  still  have 
been  quite  young.  It  was  to  him  she  would  have  gone  now; 
if  she  had  wakened  she  would  have  found  him  in  the  end 
room,  a  boy  fair  as  his  father,  and  having  the  same  look  of 
integrity  in  joy,  of  immunity  from  sorrow  or  profound  think- 
ing. She  would  have  watched  his  face,  infantile  and  pug- 
nacious with  dreams  of  the  day's  game,  until  she  longed  too 
strongly  to  touch  him  and  kiss  him.  Then  she  would  have 
turned  and  went  back  along  the  corridor,  between  the  glorious 
young  men  and  women  who  lay  restoring  their  might  for  the 
morrow,  not  one  of  them  threatened,  not  one  of  them 
doomed.  .  .  . 

Love  could  have  made  that  of  her  life  if  it  had  not  been 
beaten  away.  The  thought  was  bitter.  She  stared  with  thin 
lips  at  the  happy  gleaming  tides  until  it  struck  her  suddenly 
that  love  had  come  back  into  her  house.  It  was  here  now, 
attending  on  the  red-haired  girl,  and  it  would  not  be  beaten 
off ;  it  would  be  cherished,  it  would  be  given  sacrifices.  Surely 
if  it  could  have  made  beautiful  her  own  life,  which  without 
it  had  been  so  hideous,  it  could  exorcise  Richard's  destiny.  She 
fixed  her  eyes  on  the  high  moon  and  said  as  if  in  prayer, 
"Ellen.  .  .  ."  Ellen.  .  .  ." 

There  sounded,  in  the  recesses  of  the  house,  the  ping  of  an 
electric  bell. 

She  looked  at  the  clock  by  her  bedside.  It  was  three  o'clock. 
She  said  to  herself,  with  that  air  of  irony  which  people  to  whom 
many  strange  things  have  happened  assume  when  they  fear 
that  yet  another  is  approaching,  so  that  they  shall  not  flatter 
Fate  by  their  perturbation,  "It's  late  for  anyone  to  call." 


376  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

But  the  ping  sounded  again;  and  then  the  thud  of  blows 
upon  the  door. 

She  cried  out,  "Ah,  yes!"  She  knew  who  it  was.  It  was 
Roger,  come  in  rags,  come  in  an  idiot  hope  of  escaping  justice, 
after  some  fatuous  and  squalid  crime,  to  destroy  Richard  and 
herself.  She  hurried  over  to  her  wardrobe  and  drew  out  her 
warm  dressing-gown  and  thrust  her  feet  into  slippers,  while 
her  lips  practised  saying  lovingly,  "Roger,  Roger,  Roger! 
.  .  .  Why,  it's  you,  Roger !  .  .  .  Come  in.  Come  in,  my  boy. 
.  .  .  What  is  it,  my  poor  lad?  .  .  ." 

She  went  down  through  the  quiet  house  and  laid  her  ringers 
on  the  handle  of  the  door ;  delayed  for  a  moment,  and  raised 
her  hand  to  her  face  and  smoothed  from  it  certain  lines  of 
loathing.  Bowing  her  head,  she  murmured  a  remonstrance  to 
some  power. 

But  when  she  opened  the  door  it  was  Richard  who  stood 
there. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HE  could  not  at  once  discern  in  the  darkness  who  it  was 
that  opened  the  door,  and  he  remained  an  aloof  black 
shape  against  the  moon-glare,  lifting  his  cap  and  saying,  "I  am 
sorry  to  knock  you  up  at  this  hour,"  so  for  a  minute  Marion 
had  the  amusing  joy  of  seeing  him  as  he  appeared  to  other 
people,  remote  and  vigilant  and  courteous  and  really  more 
hidalgoesque  than  the  occasion  demanded.  She  laughed  teas- 
ingly.  The  hard  line  of  him  softened,  and  he  said,  "Mother," 
and  stepped  over  the  threshold  and  folded  her  in  his  arms, 
and  kissed  her  on  the  lips  and  hair.  She  rested  quietly  within 
his  groping,  pressing  love.  This  indoor  darkness  where  they 
stood  was  striped  with  many  lines  of  moonlight  coming  through 
cracks  in  doors  and  the  margins  of  blinds,  so  that  it  seemed 
to  have  no  more  substance  than  a  paper  lanthorn,  and. outside 
the  white  boles  and  branches  of  the  lit  leafless  trees  were  as 
luminous  stencillings  on  the  night.  There  was  nothing  solid 
in  the  world  but  their  two  bodies,  nothing  real  but  their  two 
lives. 

She  did  not  ask  him  why  he  had  come  at  this  hour.  There 
was  indeed  nothing  so  very  unusual  in  it,  for  more  than  once 
when  he  was  a  sailor  she  had  been  wakened  by  the  patter  of 
pebbles  on  her  window  and  had  looked  down  through  the  dark- 
ness on  the  whitish  oval  of  his  face,  marked  like  a  mask  with 
his  eagerness  to  see  her;  and  later,  in  southern  countries,  he 
had  often  walked  quietly  into  the  dark,  cool  room  where  she 
lay  having  her  siesta,  though  she  had  thought  him  a  hundred 
miles  away,  and  it  had  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  move  in 
the  weighty  heat  outside  save  the  writhing  sea.  It  had  always 
seemed  appropriate  to  their  relationship  that  he  should  come 
to  her  thus,  suddenly  and  without  warning  and  against  the 
common  custom.  Thus  had  he  come  to  be  born. 

She  pushed  him  away  from  her.  "Have  you  put  your  mo- 
tor-cycle in  the  shed  ?"  she  asked  indifferently. 

"No.    It's  outside  the  gate." 

377 


378  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

*  "Put  it  in.    There  may  be  frost  by  the  morning." 

He  turned  away  to  do  it.  To  him  it  was  always  heaven, 
like  the  peace  of  dreamless  sleep,  to  hand  over  to  her  the  heavy 
sword  of  his  will. 

She  watched  him  go  out  into  the  white  ecstatic  glare  and 
pass  behind  the  illuminated  twiggy  bareness  of  the  hedge, 
which  looked  like  the  phosphorescent  spine  of  some  monstrous 
stranded  fish.  This  was  a  strange  night,  crude  as  if  some 
coarse  but  powerful  human  intelligence  were  co-operating  with 
nature.  She  had  a  fancy  that  if  she  strained  her  ears  she 
might  hear  the  whirr  of  the  great  dynamo  that  served  this  huge 
electric  moon.  But  however  the  night  might  be,  this  strange, 
dangerous  son  of  hers  was  a  match  for  it.  She  looked  gloat- 
ingly after  him  as  he  passed  out  of  her  sight,  and  then  turned 
and  went  into  the  kitchen.  It  was  easy  to  prepare  him  a  meal, 
for  there  was  a  gas-stove  and  the  stores  lay  at  her  hand,  each 
in  its  own  place,  since  in  her  five  minutes*  visit  to  the  cook 
every  morning  she  imposed  the  same  nervous  neatness  here  and 
kept  the  rest  of  the  house  rectangular  and  black  and  white. 

She  heard  the  closing  of  the  front  door  and  his  steps  coming 
in  search  of  her.  She  liked  to  think  of  him  finding  his  way  to 
her  by  the  rays  of  light  warmer  than  moonlight  through  half- 
open  doors.  If  it  had  been  anyone  else  in  the  world  that  was 
coming  towards  her  she  would  have  gathered  up  her  thick 
plaits  and  pinned  them  about  her  head.  But  from  him  she 
need  not  hide  the  signs,  which  made  all  other  people  hate  her, 
that  she  had  been  beautiful  and  had  been  destroyed. 

When  he  came  in  she  said,  "Light  the  other  gas-jets.  Yes, 
both  of  them." 

Now  there  was  a  lot  of  light.  She  could  see  the  bird's-wing 
brilliance  of  his  hair,  the  faint  bluish  bloom  about  his  lips,  that 
showed  he  had  not  shaved  since  morning,  the  radiance  of  his 
eyes  and  the  flush  on  his  cheeks  that  had  come  of  his  enjoyed 
ride  through  the  cold  moony  air.  The  queer  things  men  were, 
with  their  useless,  inordinate,  disgusting  yet  somehow  mag- 
nificent growth  of  hair  on  their  faces,  and  their  capacity  for 
excitements  that  have  nothing  to  do  with  emotion.  .  .  . 

He  came  and  stood  beside  her  and  slipped  his  arm  round 
her  waist  and  murmured,  "Well,  Marion?"  and  laughed.  Al- 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  379 

ways  he  had  loved  calling  her  that,  ever  since  as  a  little  boy 
he  had  found  her  full  name  written  in  an  old  book  and  had 
run  to  her,  crying,  "Is  that  really  your  lovely  name?"  Even 
more  than  by  the  name  itself  had  he  been  pleased  by  the  way 
it  was  written,  squintwise  across  the  page  and  in  a  round  hand, 
exactly  as  he  himself  was  then  writing  his  own  name  in  his 
first  school  books.  It  made  him  see  his  mother  as  a  little  girl, 
and  helped  him  to  dream  his  favourite  dream  that  he  and  she 
were  just  the  same  age  and  could  go  to  school  and  play  games 
together.  It  still  gave  him  an  inexplicable  glow  of  pleasure,  the 
memory  of  that  brownish  signature  staggering  across  the  fly- 
leaf of  "Jessica's  First  Prayer." 

She  perceived  that  he  was  violently  excited  at  coming  back 
to  her,  but  she  took  the  toast  from  under  the  grill,  buttered  it, 
set  it  on  the  warm  plate,  and  poured  the  eggs  on  it  with  an 
ironical  air  of  absorption.  These  two  went  very  carefully  and 
mocked  each  other  perpetually  so  that  the  gods  should  not 
overhear  and  be  jealous.  "Now,  eat  it  while  it's  hot!"  she 
said,  holding  out  the  plate. 

He  put  it  down  on  the  kitchen  table  and  gathered  her  into 
his  arms. 

"Well,  mother?"  he  murmured,  looking  down  at  her,  wor- 
shipping her. 

"Oh,  my  boy,"  she  whispered,  "you've  lost  your  brown,  up 
there  in  Scotland." 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right.    But  you?" 

"As  well  as  well  can  be." 

"But,  mother  dear,  you  look  as  if  you'd  been  having  those 
bad  dreams." 

"No,  I've  had  none,  none  at  all." 

"That  means  not  too  many.    Does  it?" 

They  kissed,  and  he  said  tenderly  yet  harshly:  "Roger 
hasn't  been  bothering  you?" 

"Ah,  the  poor  thing,  don't  speak  of  him  like  that,"  she  said. 
"No,  but  I've  not  heard  from  him  for  six  weeks.  Not  even  at 
Christmas.  I'm  a  little  anxious.  But  it  may  be  all  right.  You 
remember  last  Christmas  there  was  a  time  when  he  didn't 
write.  I  expect  it'll  be  all  right."  But  with  her  eyes  she 
abandoned  herself  to  fear,  so  that  he  should  soothe  her  and 


380  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

stroke  her  hands  with  his,  which  were  trembling  in  spite  of 
their  strength  because  he  was  so  glad  to  see  her. 

"Mother,  darling,  I  have  hated  leaving  you  alone.  But  it 
was  necessary.  I've  done  good  work  this  winter."  He  made 
with  one  hand  a  stiff  and  sweeping  movement  that  expressed 
his  peculiar  kind  of  arrogance,  which  stated  that  his  was  the 
victory,  now  and  for  ever,  and  yet  took  therefrom  no  pride 
for  himself.  "I've  pulled  it  off,"  he  said  jeeringly,  and  smiled 
at  her  derisively  but  with  tight  lips,  as  if  they  must  take  this 
thing  lightly  or  some  danger  would  spring.  "Where  I  get  my 
brains  from  I  don't  know,"  he  muttered  teasingly,  and  put 
out  his  hand  and  traced  the  interweaving  strands  in  one  of 
her  plaits.  "What  hair  you've  got !"  he  said.  "I've  never  seen 
a  woman  with  .  .  ."  He  started  violently  and  was  silent. 

She  cried  out,  "What  is  it?"  But  he  answered,  speaking 
clippedly,  "Oh,  nothing,  nothing.  .  .  ." 

So  evidently  was  he  overcoming  a  moment  of  utter  confusion 
that  she  turned  away  and  busied  herself  with  the  coffee. 

Behind  her  his  voice  spoke  falsely,  uplifted  in  a  feint  of  the 
surprised  recollection  which  at  its  first  coming  had  struck  him 
dumb  the  previous  moment.  "And  Ellen!  I'm  a  nice  sort 
of  lover  to  be  five  minutes  in  the  house  without  asking  for  my 
Ellen !  How  is  she  ?  How  have  you  been  getting,  on  together  ?" 

"Oh,  your  dear  Ellen !"  she  cried  fervently.  But  her  heart 
went  cold  within  her.  He  was  right.  It  was  against  nature 
that  he  should  have  forgotten  the  woman  he  loved  when  he 
came  under  the  roof  where  she  was  sleeping  her  beautiful 
sleep.  Could  it  be  that  Ellen  was  not  the  woman  he  loved  and 
that  his  engagement  to  her  was  some  new  joke  on  the  part  of 
destiny  ?  She  whirled  round  to  have  a  look  at  him,  exclaiming 
to  make  time,  "Oh,  she  is  the  most  wonderful  creature  who 
ever  lived."  But  he  had  forgotten  his  embarrassment  now, 
and  was  standing  with  bent  head,  thinking  intently,  and  on  his 
face  there  was  the  dazzled  and  vulnerable  look  of  a  man  who 
is  truly  in  love.  Well,  if  that  were  so,  why  could  it  not  be 
pure  and  easy  joy  for  them  both,  as  it  was  for  other  sons  and 
mothers  when  there  were  happy  marriage  afoot?  Why  must 
their  life,  even  in  such  parts  of  it  as  escaped  the  shadow  of 
Peacey  or  Roger,  be  so  queer  in  climate?  This  time  it  was 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  381 

Richard's  fault.  She  had  been  willing  to  be  lightly,  facilely 
happy  over  it  like  other  people.  Her  spirit  snarled  at  him, 
and  she  cried  out  impatiently,  "Go  and  eat  your  eggs  before 
they're  cold."  As  Richard  took  his  seat,  moving  slowly  and 
trancedly,  and  began  to  eat  his  food  with  half  indifference  be- 
cause of  his  dreams,  she  took  the  chair  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table,  and,  cupping  her  chin  in  her  hands,  stared  at  him 
petulantly. 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  in  your  letters  how  beautiful  she 
was?"  she  demanded. 

He  answered  mildly,  "Didn't  I?" 

"No,  you  didn't,"  she  told  him  curtly.  "You  said  you 
thought  her  pretty.  Thought  her  pretty,  indeed,  with  that 
hair  and  that  wonderful  Scotch  little  face !  .  .  ." 

She  caught  her  breath  in  irritation  at  the  expression  on  his 
face,  the  uneasy  movement  from  side  to  side  of  his  eyes  which 
warred  with  the  smile  on  his  lips.  Why,  when  he  thought  of 
his  love,  need  he  have  an  air  as  if  he  listened  to  two  voices  and 
was  distressed  by  the  effort  to  follow  their  diverse  musics? 
But  she  could  not  quarrel  with  him  for  long,  for  he  was  wear- 
ing the  drenched  and  glittering  look  which  was  given  him  by 
triumph  or  hard  physical  exercise  and  which  always  overcame 
her  heart  like  the  advance  of  an  army.  His  flesh  and  hair 
seemed  to  reflect  the  light  as  if  they  were  wet,  but  neither  with 
sweat  nor  with  water.  Rather  was  it  as  if  he  were  newly  risen 
from  a  brave  dive  into  some  pool  of  vitality  whose  whereabouts 
were  the  secret  that  made  his  mouth  vigilant.  Even  he  had 
the  dazed,  victorious  look  of  a  risen  diver.  Utterly  melted, 
she  cried  out,  "I  am  so  glad  you  have  come  home." 

He  started,  and  came  smiling  out  of  his  dream.  "I  am  so 
glad  to  be  here,"  he  said.  They  laughed  across  the  table;  the 
strong  light  showed  them  the  dear  lines  they  knew  on  one 
another's  faces.  "That's  why,"  he  cried  brilliantly,  "I've 
come  at  this  ungodly  hour.  I  had  to  be  here.  I  got  into  Lon- 
don at  nine  o'clock  and  I  went  and  had  some  dinner  at  the 
Station  Hotel.  But  I  felt  wretched.  Mother,  I'm  getting," 
he  announced  with  a  naive  triumph,  "awfully  domestic.  I  got 
the  hump  the  minute  Ellen  left  Edinburgh.  I  felt  I  must 
come  down  to  you  at  once,  so  I  went  and  got  the  cycle  and 


382  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

started  off  straight  away,  and  I  would  have  been  here  by  mid- 
night if  I  hadn't  had  a  smash  at  Upminster.  No,  I  wasn't 
hurt.  Not  a  scrap.  It  was  at  the  beginning  of  that  garden 
suburb.  God,  it  must  be  beastly  living  in  those  new  houses; 
like  beginning  to  colour  a  pipe.  I'm  glad  we  live  in  this  old 
place.  Well,  a  chap  who'd  bought  some  timber  at  an  auction 
down  in  Surrey,  and  was  taking  it  home  to  Laindon,  dropped 
a  log  off  his  lorry,  and  I  smashed  into  it  and  burst  a  tyre  and 
broke  half  a  dozen  spokes  in  my  front  wheel,  so  I  had  to  hunt 
round  till  I  found  a  garage,  and  when  I  did  I  had  to  spend 
hours  tinkering  the  machine  up.  The  man  who  owned  the  place 
came  down  in  his  pyjamas  and  a  dressing-gown  and  sat  talk- 
ing about  his  wife.  She  hadn't  wanted  to  let  him  come  down 
because  it  was  so  late.  'Is  that  a  woman  who'll  help  a  man 
in  his  business,  I  ask  you?'  he  kept  on  saying.  Mustn't  it  be 
queer  to  have  womenfolk  with  whom  one  doesn't  feel  identi- 
cal?" They  exchanged  a  boastful  look  of  happiness,  the  in- 
tensity of  which,  however,  seemed  the  last  effort  he  found  pos- 
sible. For  his  lids  drooped,  and  he  supported  his  head  on  his 
hand  and  took  a  deep  drink,  and  said  drowsily,  "I'm  glad  to 
be  here/' 

She  went  and  stood  beside  him  and  stroked  his  hair.  "I 
should  have  come  to  you  at  Aberfay,"  she  grieved.  "But  I 
knew  I  couldn't  stand  the  winter,  and  I  would  only  have  been 
a  nuisance  to  you  if  I  had  been  ill  all  the  time.  Did  the  woman 
feed  you  properly,  dear?" 

He  said,  without  looking  up,  "I  wouldn't  have  let  you  come. 
It  was  a  God-forsaken  hole.  I  couldn't  have  stood  it  if  it 
hadn't  been  for" — he  gave  it  out  with  an  odd  hesitancy,  almost 
as  if  he  were  boyishly  shy — "Ellen.  And  I  had  to  stand  it,  so 
that  I  could  pull  this  thing  off." 

She  asked,  "What  thing,  my  dear?"  though  she  was  not  so 
very  greatly  interested.  By  daylight  her  ambition  for  him  was 
fanatic  and  without  limit.  But  in  this  stolen  hour,  when  no 
one  knew  that  they  were  together,  she  let  herself  feel  something 
like  levity  about  his  doings.  It  seemed  enough,  considering 
how  glorious  he  was,  that  he  should  merely  be. 

He  began  to  eat  again  and  told  the  story  tersely  between 
mouthfuls.  "You  know  the  reason  that  I  stayed  up  in  Edin- 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  383 

burgh  after  I'd  sent  off  Ellen  was  that  I  thought  I  had  to 
show  the  directors  what  I'd  been  doing  at  Aberfay  next  Thurs- 
day. They  were  to  come  on  to  me  after  they'd  paid  their  visit 
to  the  Clyde  works.  Well,  they  came  yesterday  instead.  Sir 
Vincent  has  to  go  to  America  sooner  than  he  expected,  so  he 
wanted  to  get  it  over.  When  they  saw  what  I'd  been  trying 
for  during  the  last  six  months  they  got  excited.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  is  pretty  good.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  about  it,  but 
you  know  I  can't.  Also  I  had  told  McDermott  that  Dynevors, 
the  Birmingham  people,  had  heard  my  contract  was  up  in 
March,  and  wanted  to  buy  me.  So  they  got  frightened,  and 
offered  me  a  new  contract  that  they  thought  would  keep  me." 
He  had  finished  his  meal,  and  he  pushed  away  his  plate  and 
stretched  himself,  looking  up  at  her  and  smiling  sleepily. 

"Have  you  taken  it?" 

"Rather.     It  couldn't  have  been  better." 

"What  is  it?" 

"They've  doubled  my  screw  and  given  me  an  interest  in  the 
business." 

"How?" 

He  shook  his  head,  yawning.  "A  permanent  agreement 
.  .  .  percentages.  .  .  .  I'm  too  woolly-headed  to  tell  you  now." 

"But  what  does  it  mean?  You  don't  care  about  money  or 
position  as  a  rule.  You've  always  told  me  that  your  work 
was  enough  for  you.  Why  are  you  so  pleased  ?"  Though  the 
moment  before  she  had  thought  she  cared  nothing  for  the  ways 
that  his  soul  travelled,  she  was  in  an  agony  lest  he  had  been 
changed  by  the  love  of  woman  and  had  become  buyable. 

He  read  her  perfectly,  and  pulled  himself  out  of  his  drowsi- 
ness to  reassure  her.  "No,  I'm  not  being  glad  because  I'm 
pleasing  them ;  I'm  glad  because  now  I  can  make  them  please 
me.  It's  what  I've  always  been  working  for,  and  it's  come  two 
years  before  I  expected  it.  I've  got  my  footing  in  the  biggest 
armament  firm  in  England.  I'm  the  youngest  director.  I've 
got" — again  he  made  that  stiff,  sweeping  gesture  of  arrogance 
that  was  not  vanity — "the  best  brain  of  them  all.  In  ten  years 
I  shall  be  someone  in  the  firm.  In  twenty  years  I  shall  be 
nearly  everybody.  And  think  of  what  sport  industry's  going 
to  be  during  the  next  half-century  while  this  business  of  capi- 


384  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

tal  and  labour  is  being  fought  out,  particularly  to  a  man  like 
me,  who's  got  no  axe  to  grind,  who's  outside  all  interests,  who, 
thanks  to  you,  doesn't  belong  to  any  class.  And  you  see  I 
needn't  be  afraid  of  losing  my  power  to  work  if  I  meddle  in 
affairs.  I'm  definitely,  finally,  unalterably  a  scientific  man. 
I've  got  that  for  good.  That's  thanks  to  you  too." 

"How  could  your  stupid  old  mother  do  that  ?"  she  murmured 
protestingly. 

"You're  not  stupid,"  he  said,  and  bending  down  he  kissed 
her  head  where  it  lay  on  his  shoulder.  "Whatever  good  there 
is  in  me  I've  got  from  you.  You  gave  me  my  brain.  And  I'm 
able  to  do  scientific  work  because  of  the  example  you've  been 
to  me,  though  I'm  rottenly  unfit  for  it  myself.  Mother,  look 
at  my  hands.  Do  you  see  how  they're  shaking?  They're 
steady  enough  when  I'm  doing  anything,  but  often  when  there's 
nothing  to  be  done  they  shake  and  shake.  My  mind's  like  that. 
When  there's  someone  to  impress  or  govern  I'm  all  right.  But 
when  I'm  alone  it  shakes — there's  a  kind  of  doubt.  And  there's 
such  a  lot  of  loneliness  in  scientific  work,  when  even  science 
isn't  there.  Then  that  comes.  .  .  .  Doubt.  Not  of  what  one's 
doing,  but  of  what  one  is;  or  where  one  is.  I  never  would 
have  kept  on  with  it  if  it  hadn't  been  for  your  example.  I 
couldn't  have  pushed  on.  I  would  have  gone  off  and  done 
adventurous  things. 

"Do  you  remember  that  French  chap  who  wanted  me  to  go 
with  him  into  British  Guiana?  I'd  have  liked  that.  There's 
nothing  stops  one  thinking  so  well  as  being  a  blooming  hero; 
and  it's  such  fun.  And  why  should  one  go  on  doing  this  lonely 
work  that's  so  hellishly  hard?  Of  course  it's  important. 
Mother,  Science  is  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  world.  It's 
a  funny  thing  that  if  you  think  and  talk  about  the  spirit  you 
only  look  into  the  mind  of  man,  but  if  you  cut  out  the  spirit 
and  study  matter  you  look  straight  into  the  mind  of  God.  But 
what  good  is  that  when  you  know  that  at  the  end  you're  going 
to  die  and  rot  and  there's  not  the  slightest  guarantee  which 
would  satisfy  anybody  but  a  born  fool  that  God  had  any  need 
of  us  afterwards?  You  can't  even  console  yourself  with  the 
thought  that  it's  for  the  good  of  the  race,  because  that  will  die 
and  rot  too  when  the  earth  grows  cold.  One  has  to  stake  every- 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  385 

thing  on  the  flat  improbability  that  service  of  the  truth  is  a 
good  in  itself,  such  a  good  that  it's  worth  while  sacrificing 
one's  life  to  it. 

"That's  where  you've  been  such  a  help  to  me.  You  had  no 
justification  for  supposing  that  life  was  worth  living.  You'd 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  whole  business  was  foul,  and 
the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  was  to  get  all  the  fun  one  could 
out  of  it.  If  you  had  determined  to  be  as  little  a  mother  to 
me  as  you  could  I  would  have  understood  it,  considering  of 
what  I  must  have  reminded  you.  You'd  money,  you  were 
beautiful,  you've  always  been  able  to  attract  people.  You 
might  so  easily  have  gone  away  from  here  and  made  a  life 
of  your  own  and  just  kept  me  in  the  corner  of  your  eye,  as 
lots  of  unhappily  married  women  that  one  meets  keep  their 
children.  Instead  you  shut  yourself  up  here  and  gave  yourself 
utterly  to  looking  after  me.  I  sometimes  feel  that  the  reason 
I've  grown  up  taller  and  less  liable  to  illness  than  other  men 
is  that  you  loved  me  so  much  when  I  was  a  child.  You  seemed 
to  pour  your  life  into  me.  And  you  didn't  just  take  pleasure 
in  me.  You  trained  me,  and  I  must  have  been  a  nasty  little 
brute  to  train.  Do  you  remember  licking  me  because  I  went 
to  that  circus?  You  took  it  out  of  yourself  teaching  me  to  be 
straight  and  decent.  If  you'd  been  an  ordinary  married  woman 
who  believed  that  you'd  go  to  hell  if  you  didn't  do  your  duty 
by  your  children,  and  who  knew  she'd  get  public  respect  and 
the  devotion  of  her  husband  as  a  reward  for  doing  it,  the  way 
you  did  it  would  have  been  magnificent.  But  to  do  it  like  that 
when  you  knew  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  justice  in 
heaven  or  earth — I  tell  you,  mother,  it's  kept  me  going  to  think 
of  the  sacrifice  you  made  for  me " 

"Oh  no,"  she  cried.  "It  wasn't  a  sacrifice  at  all,  my  dear, 
to  be  with  you." 

"It  must  have  been,"  he  said  harshly,  as  if  he  were  piling 
up  a  case  against  a  malefactor,  "for  you  of  all  women."  He 
drew  her  alongside  of  him  and  stared  up  at  her.  "Weren't 
there  bad  times,  when  you  hated  being  cheated  of  your  youth  ? 
When  you  longed  for  a  husband — for  some  man  to  adore  you 
and  look  after  you?  When  you  felt  bitter  because  it  had  all 
been  over  so  soon  ?"  She  averted  her  face,  but  his  arm  gripped 


386  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

her  waist  more  closely,  and  he  asked  pleadingly,  "Mother,  let 
me  know  everything  about  you.  I'll  be  married  soon.  There'll 
be  no  more  talking  like  this  while  the  moon  goes  down  after 
that.  Let  me  know  everything  you've  done  for  me,  everything 
you've  given  me.  Why  shouldn't  I  know  how  wonderful  you 
are  ?  Tell  me,  weren't  there  bad  times  ?" 

Slowly  and  reluctantly  she  turned  towards  him  a  face  that, 
wavering  with  grief,  looked  strangely  childish  between  her  two 
greying  plaits.  "I  never  went  to  a  dance,"  she  said  unsteadily. 
"Isn't  it  silly  of  me  I  mind  that?  .  .  .  Till  a  few  years  ago  I 
couldn't  bear  to  hear  dance  music.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  you  poor  darling! — and  you  would  have  danced  so 
beautifully!"  he  cried  in  agony,  and  drew  her  into  his  arms. 
She  tried  to  beat  herself  free  and  twisted  her  mouth  away 
from  his  consoling  kisses,  so  that  she  might  sob,  "But  it 
wasn't  a  sacrifice,  it  wasn't  a  sacrifice!  Those  were  only 
moods.  I  never  really  wanted  anything  except  to  be  with  you !" 
But  her  bliss  in  him  had  been  too  tightly  strung  by  his  sudden 
coming  and  by  his  open  speech  of  that  concerning  which  they 
spoke  as  seldom  as  the  passionately  religious  speak  of  God, 
so  for  a  little  time  she  had  to  weep.  But  presently  she  stretched 
out  her  hand  and  pressed  back  his  seeking  mouth. 

"Hush !"  she  said  with  a  grave  wildness.  "We  must  not 
talk  like  this." 

He  lifted  his  face,  which  was  convulsed  with  love  and  pain, 
and  found  her  stern  as  a  priestess  who  defends  her  mystery 
from  violation.  Meekly  he  let  his  arms  fall  from  her  body  and 
turned  away,  resting  his  head  on  his  hand  and  staring  at  a 
blank  wall. 

She  saw  that  she  had  hurt  him.  She  drew  close  to  him 
again,  and  murmured  loringly,  though  still  with  defensive 
majesty:  "Why  should  we  talk  of  it,  my  boy?  It's  all  over 
now,  and  you're  a  made  man.  This  contract  really  does  mean 
that,  doesn't  it?" 

He  answered,  patting  her  hand  to  show  that  he  submitted 
to  her  in  everything,  "Oh,  in  the  end  it  means  illimitable 
power." 

To  give  him  pleasure  she  exchanged  with  him  a  brilliant 
and  triumphant  glance,  though  at  this  moment  she  felt  that 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  387 

her  love  for  him  concerned  itself  less  with  ambition  than  she 
had  ever  supposed.  Incredulously  she  whispered  to  her  harsh, 
sceptical  mind  that  it  almost  seemed  as  if  its  sphere  were  not 
among  temporal  things.  But  it  gave  her  a  real  rapture  to  per- 
ceive in  his  eyes  the  elder  brother  of  the  expression  that  had 
always  dwelt  there  in  his  childish  days  when  he  announced 
to  her  his  cricket-scores  and  his  prizes;  even  so,  she  had 
thought  then,  the  adjutant  of  a  banished  leader  might  hand 
him  down  arrows  to  shoot  on  the  city  that  had  exiled  him. 
And  indeed  the  success  of  their  conspiracy  had  been  marvel- 
lous. In  old  times  they  had  looked  out  of  this  house  under 
lowered  and  defiant  brows,  knowing  there  was  none  without 
who  knew  of  them  who  did  not  despise  them.  But  now  they 
could  smile  tenderly  and  derisively  out  into  this  hushed  "moon- 
light that  received  the  uncountable  and  fatuously  peaceful 
breaths  of  the  sleepers  who  had  been  their  enemies  and  were 
to  be  their  slaves.  It  was  strange  that  at  this  of  all  instants 
she  should  for  the  space  of  a  heartbeat  lose  her  sense  of  the 
uniqueness  of  her  fate  and  be  confounded  by  amazement  at 
the  common  lot  in  which  they  two  and  the  vanquished  sleepers 
alike  partook.  Was  it  possible  that  this  could  be?  That  this 
plethora  of  beings  that  coated  the  careless  turning  earth  like 
grains  of  dust  on  a  sleeping  top  were  born — mysterious  act ! — 
and  mated — act  so  much  more  mysterious  than  it  seemed ! — 
and  died — act  which  was  the  essence  of  mystery !  She  was 
dizzied  with  astonishment,  and  to  steady  herself  put  out  her 
hands  and  caught  hold  of  those  broad  shoulders,  which,  her 
marvelling  mind  recalled  to  her,  she  had  miraculously  been 
able  to  make  out  of  her  so  much  less  broad  body.  She  felt 
guilty  as  she  recovered,  for  the  habit  of  thinking  about  sub- 
jects unconnected  with  her  family  had  always  seemed  to  her 
as  unwomanly  as  a  thin  voice  or  a  flat  chest.  Penitently  she 
dropped  a  kiss  on  his  forehead  and  muttered,  "Richard,  you're 
a  good  son.  You've  made  up  for  everything  I've  been  through 
many  times  over.  .  .  ." 

"Then  stay  up  with  me  a  little,"  he  said.  "Don't  let's  go 
to  bed  yet."  He  stretched  out  his  arm  and  moved  a  wicker 
armchair  that  stood  on  the  hearth  till  it  faced  the  grate.  "Sit 
down,  dear,  and  I'll  make  you  a  fire.  Dear,  do  sit  down.  This 


388  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

is  the  last  night  we  shall  have  together."  She  obeyed,  for  he 
spoke  with  the  sullenness  which  she  knew  to  be  in  him  a  mask 
of  intense  desire.  He  busied  himself  with  the  fire  and  coal 
that  the  servants  had  left  ready  for  the  morning,  and  when  he 
had  made  a  blaze  he  squatted  down  on  the  rug  and  rested  his 
head  on  her  lap  and  seemed  to  sleep. 

But  he  did  not.  Against  the  fine  silk  of  her  kimono  she 
felt  the  sweep  of  his  eyelashes.  "Why  is  he  doing  this?"  she 
wondered;  and  discovered  happily,  "Ah,  he  is  going  to  tell 
me  about  Ellen."  She  waited  serenely,  while  the  clock  ticked. 

Presently  he  spoke,  but  did  not  lift  his  head.  "Mother,  I 
like  being  here.  .  .  ." 

She  was  not  perturbed  because  he  then  fell  silent.  It  was 
natural  enough  that  he  should  be  shy  of  speaking  of  his  other 
love. 

But  he  continued:  "Mother,  do  you  know  why  I  would 
always  have  stuck  to  my  people,  no  matter^  how  they'd  treated 
me?  I  wonder  if  you'll  think  I'm  mad?  I'd  have  stuck  to 
them  in  any  case — because  they've  got  the  works  on  Kerith 
Island,  and  I've  always  wanted  to  work  there.  Think  of  it! 
I  shall  be  able  to  sleep  here  at  night  and  go  out  in  the  morning 
to  a  place  I've  seen  all  my  life  out  of  these  windows.  And 
all  day  long  I'll  be  able  to  put  my  head  out  of  my  lab.  door 
and  look  along  the  hill  to  our  tree-tops.  Mother,  I  do  love 
this  house,"  he  said  earnestly,  raising  his  head  and  looking 
round  the  kitchen  as  if  even  it  were  dear  to  him,  though  he 
could  not  have  been  in  it  more  than  once  or  twice  before.  "It's 
a  queer  thing,  but  though  you've  altered  this  completely  from 
what  it  was  when  I  was  a  boy,  it  still  seems  the  oldest  and 
most  familiar  thing  in  the  world.  And  though  it's  really  rather 
exposed  as  houses  go,  hanging  up  here  over  the  marshes,  I 
feel  when  I  come  back  to  it  as  if  I  were  creeping  down  into 
some  hiding-place,  into  some  warm,  closed  place  where  nothing 
horrible  could  ever  find  me.  Do  you  feel  like  that,  mother?" 

She  nodded.  "I  might  hate  this  house,  considering  all  that's 
happened  here.  But  I,  too  .  .  ."  She  spoke  in  the  slightly 
disagreeable  tone  that  a  reticent  nature  assumes  when  it  is 
obliged  to  confess  to  strong  feeling.  "Yes,  I  love  it" 

They  looked  solemnly  into  the  crepitant  blaze  of  the  new 


CHAPTER  \n  THE  JUDGE  389 

fire.  He  grasped  her  hand ;  but  suddenly  released  it  and  asked 
querulously,  as  if  he  had  remembered  certain  tedious  obliga- 
tions: "And  Ellen,  does  she  like  the  house?" 

She  was  appalled,  "Yes,  yes!     I  think  so,"  she  stammered. 

"Good,"  he  said  curtly,  and  buried  his  head  in  her  lap  again. 

For  as  long  as  possible  she  endured  her  dismay ;  then,  bend- 
ing forward  and  trying  to  twist  his  face  round  so  that  she 
could  read  it,  she  asked  unsteadily,  "Richard,  you  do  love 
Ellen,  don't  you?" 

He  sat  up  and  met  her  eyes.  "Of  course  I  do.  Have  you 
been  thirty-six  hours  with  her  without  seeing  that  I  must? 
She — she's  a  lamp  with  a  double  burner.  There's  her  beauty, 
and  her  dear,  funny,  young  little  soul.  It's  good  to  have  some- 
one that  one  can  worship  and  befriend  at  the  same  time.  Yes, 
we're  going  to  be  quite  happy."  His  eyes  slid  away  from  hers 
evasively,  then  hardened  and  resolved  to  be  honest,  and  re- 
turned again.  "Mother,  I  tell  you  this  is  the  end."  After  that 
his  honesty  faltered.  He  chose  to  take  it  that  his  mother  was 
looking  so  fixedly  at  him  because  she  had  not  understood  the 
meaning  of  his  words,  so  he  repeated  soberly,  "I  tell  you,  this 
is  the  end.  The  end  of  love  making  for  me.  I  shall  never 
love  any  other  woman  but  Ellen  as  long  as  I  live."  And  he 
turned  to  the  fire,  the  set  of  his  shoulders  confessing  what  his 
lips  would  not — that  though  he  loved  Ellen,  though  he  wanted 
Ellen,  there  was  something  imperfect  in  the  condition  of  his 
love  which  made  him  leaden  and  uneager. 

"That's  right,  that's  right ;  you  must  be  good  to  her,"  Marion 
murmured,  and  stroked  his  hair.  "I  don't  think  you  could  have 
done  better  than  your  Ellen  if  you'd  searched  the  whole  world," 
she  said  timidly,  trying  to  give  him  a  cue  for  praise  of  his 
love.  "It's  such  astonishing  luck  to  find  a  girl  whose  sense 
will  be  as  much  solid  good  to  you  as  a  fortune  in  the  bank 
and  who  looks  as  pretty  as  a  rose-tree  at  the  same  time." 

He  made  no  response.  The  words  were  strangled  in  her 
throat,  and  she  fell  to  tapping  her  foot  rhythmically  against 
the  fender.  Her  eyes  were  moist;  this  was  so  different  from 
the  talk  she  had  expected. 

Presently  his  shoulders  twitched.  "Don't  do  that,  mother 
dear,"  he  said  impatiently. 


390  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"I'm  sorry,  darling,"  she  answered  wearily.  She  threw  her- 
self back  in  her  chair  and  clenched  her  fists.  Desperation 
fevered  her,  and  she  began  to  speak  vindictively.  "Of  course 
it  was  a  great  relief  to  me  when  I  saw  the  kind  of  girl  Ellen 
is,  considering  how  up  till  now  you've  sidled  past  women  of 
any  sort  of  character  as  if  you'd  heard  that  men  got  sent  to 
prison  for  loving  any  but  fools." 

He  laughed  uneasily. 

"Yes,"  she  went  on;  "you  always  seemed  to  be  looking 
carefully  for  anything  you  could  find  that  was  as  insipid  as  a 
water-melon.  You  can't,  you  know,  possibly  count  your  love- 
affairs  as  amongst  your  successes."  She  jerked  her  head  back, 
her  lips  retracted  in  a  kind  of  grin.  "Mariquita  de  Rojas!" 
she  jeered. 

He  started,  though  not  much.  "I  never  knew  you  knew 
about  that,"  he  said  mildly. 

"Of  course  I  did."  She  quivered  with  exaggerated  humilia- 
tion. "To  see  my  son  spending  himself  on  something  so  nearly 
nothing.  And  then  the  way  you  moped  and  raged  at  her 
when  she  threw  you  over.  Seeing  the  poor  woman  was  a  fool, 
how  else  could  you  expect  her  to  behave  but  like  a  fool?  It 
was  undignified  of  you  to  put  the  burden  of  being  the  woman 
you  loved  on  a  poor  thing  like  her — like  overworking  a  servant 
girl."  She  perceived  that  she  was  hot  and  shaking,  and  that 
she  was  within  an  ace  of  betraying  the  secret  that  there  some- 
times rose  in  her  heart  a  thirst  to  beat  and  hurt  every  woman 
that  he  had  ever  loved.  Words  would  pour  out  that  would 
expose  her  disgusting  desire  to  strike  and  scratch  if  she  did 
not  substitute  others.  So  she  found  herself  crying  in  a  voice 
that  was  thinner  than  hers:  "And  a  married  woman!  To  see 
you  doing  wrong!" 

The  moment  she  said  it  she  was  ashamed  and  drew  an  ex- 
punging hand  across  her  lips.  And  as  she  had  feared,  he  threw 
over  his  shoulder  a  glance  that  humorously  recognised  the 
truths  which  she  had  insincerely  suppressed:  that  while  she 
desired  to  hurt  the  woman  whom  he  had  loved,  she  would  gladly 
have  murdered  any  woman  who  had  refused  to  love  him, 
whether  married  or  single ;  and  that  she  had  never  cared  what 
he  had  done  so  long  as  he  did  not  lose  his  physical  and  moral 


CHAPTER  MI  THE  JUDGE  391 

fastidiousness,  and  did  not  lust  after  flesh  that,  having  rotted 
its  nerves  with  delight  unsanctioned  by  the  spirit,  knew  cor- 
ruption before  death,  and  so  long  as  he  had  not  pretended  to 
any  woman  that  he  wanted  her  soul  when  he  wanted  her  body. 

Seeing  the  tears  in  her  eyes,  he  said  kindly :  "Well,  I  never 
thought  Mariquita's  marriage  counted  for  much.  Do  you 
remember  how  you  took  her  in  one  night  when  old  de  Rojas 
hid  in  a  cloisonne  vase  on  the  verandah  for  cover  and  potted 
at  the  stars  with  his  gun?"  But  in  his  voice  she  read  wonder 
that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  should  have  found  his 
honest  mother  forging  a  moral  attitude. 

It  was  dreadful  that,  on  this  of  all  nights,  and  so  soon  after 
a  special  illumination  of  their  relationship,  she  should  have  set 
him  making  allowances  for  her  to  cover  up  her  insincerity. 
She  stammered  miserably:  "Well,  Ellen's  a  dear,  dear  girl," 
and  twisted  her  fingers  in  her  lap,  and  cried  out  in  a  fresh 
access  of  fever:  "It's  strange:  this  is  a  cold  night,  and  yet  I 
feel  hot  and  heavy  and  sticky  as  I  did  in  Italy  when  the  sirocco 
blew." 

He  slid  his  hand  into  hers  again  and  altered  his  position  so 
that  he  could  smile  up  into  her  face.  "Yes,  she's  a  dear  girl," 
he  agreed  comfortingly. 

"Then  marry  her  soon!"  she  begged.  "You're  thirty.  It's 
time  you  had  a  life  of  your  own.  You  must  make  the  ties 
that  will  last  when  I  am  dead.  Marry  her  soon." 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "I  will  marry  her  soon." 

"At  once !"  she  urged.  "You  can  be  married  in  three  weeks, 
you  know,  if  you  set  things  going  immediately.  You'll  see 
about  it  to-morrow,  won't  you  ?" 

He  said  nothing,  but  stroked  her  hand. 

"You  will  do  that?"  she  almost  shrieked. 

He  moistened  his  dry  lips.  "I  hadn't  thought  .  .  .  quite 
so  soon.  .  .  ." 

"Why  not?     Why  not?" 

"She  is  so  very  young,"  he  mumbled,  and  turned  away  his 
face. 

"Why,  Richard,  Richard!"  she  exclaimed  softly.  "God 
knows  I'm  not  in  love  with  old-fashioned  ideas.  I've  only  to 
put  up  my  hand  behind  my  ear  to  feel  a  scar  they  gave  me 


392  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

thirty  years  ago  when  I  was  hunted  down  Roothing  High 
Street.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  new-fashioned  ideas  are 
as  mawkish  as  the  old  ones  were  brutal.  And  worst  of  all  is 
this  idea  about  marriage  being  dreadful."  She  blushed  deeply. 
"It's  not.  What  you  make  of  it  may  be,  but  the  thing  itself 
is  not.  If  Ellen's  old  enough  to  love  you,  she's  old  enough  to 
marry  you.  Oh,  if  you  miscall — that,  you  throw  dirt  at  every- 
thing." She  paused ;  and  it  rushed  in  on  her  that  he,  too,  had 
told  a  lie.  To  make  an  easy  answer  to  her  inconvenient  ques- 
tion he  had  profaned  his  conviction  that  the  life  of  the  body 
was  decorous  and  honourable.  Why  were  they  beginning  to 
lie  to  each  other,  like  other  mothers  and  sons? 

He  liked  his  error  as  little  as  she  liked  hers.  "It's  all  right, 
mother,"  he  said  drearily;  and,  after  some  seconds,  added 
with  false  brightness:  "I'm  sorry  in  a  way  I  didn't  wait  till 
to-morrow  morning  in  town.  I  wanted  to  buy  something  for 
Ellen.  I've  never  given  her  anything  really  good.  It  cost 
me  next  to  nothing  to  live  in  Scotland.  I've  got  lots  of  money 
by  me.  I  thought  a  jade  necklace.  It  would  look  jolly  with 
her  hair.  Or,  better  still,  malachite  beads.  But  they're  more 
difficult  to  get." 

"Ah,  jewellery,"  she  said. 

"Well,  I  suppose  it's  the  best  thing  to  give  a  girl,"  he  as- 
sented, unconscious  of  her  irony. 

Now  that  she  had  heard  him  designing  to  give  jewels  to  his 
little  Ellen,  that  earnest  child  who  thought  only  of  laying  up 
treasure  in  heaven  and  would  say  bravely  to  the  present  of  a 
string  of  pearls,  "Thank  you,  they're  verra  nice,"  and  grieve 
silently  because  no  one  had  thought  to  give  her  a  really  good 
dictionary  of  economic  terms,  she  knew  for  certain  that  he 
had  travelled  far  out  of  the  orbit  of  his  love.  The  heart  is  a 
universe,  and  has  its  dark,  cold,  outer  space  where  there  are 
no  affections ;  and  there  he  had  strayed  and  was  lost.  It  was 
not  well  with  him.  Furtively  she  raised  her  handkerchief  to 
her  eyes.  This  was  not  the  hour  that  she  expected  when  she 
had  opened  the  door  and  seen  her  son,  and  beyond  him  the 
gleaming  night  that  had  seemed  to  promise  ecstasy  to  all  that 
were  about  and  doing  in  its  span.  Well,  outside  the  house  that 
perfect  night  must  still  endure,  though  it  would  be  falling  un- 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  393 

der  the  dominion  of  the  dawn.  The  shadows  of  the  trees 
would  be  lengthening  on  the  lawn  like  slow  farewells ;  but  the 
fields  were  still  suffused  with  that  light  which  proceeds  from 
the  chaste  moon's  misconceptions  of  human  life  and  love. 
For  the  moon  sees  none  but  lovers,  or  those  who  stay  awake 
by  bedsides  out  of  mercy,  or  those  who  sleep;  and  men  and 
women  when  they  sleep  look  pitiful  and  innocent.  So  it  sends 
down  on  earth  this  light  that  is  as  beautiful  as  love,  and  soft 
as  mercy,  and  the  very -colour  of  innocence  itself.  It  had 
seemed  to  Marion  that  often  those  who  walked  in  those  beams 
tried  to  justify  the  moon's  faith  in  them.  Harry  had  been  the 
sweeter  lover  when  the  nights  were  not  dark;  when  there 
was  this  noble  glory  in  the  sky  his  passion  had  changed  from 
greed  for  something  as  easily  attainable  as  food,  to  hunger 
for  something  hardly  to  be  attained  by  man.  Perhaps  his  son, 
if  he  would  walk  in  the  moonlight,  would  remember  that 
which  he  had  forgotten.  She  said  eagerly:  "Richard,  before 
you  go  to  bed,  let  us  go  out  into  the  garden,  and  look  at  the 
moon  setting  over  Kerith  Island." 

"No,"  he  said  obstinately,  and  laid  his  head  on  her  lap. 
She  began  to  rock  herself  with  misery,  until  he  made  a  faint 
noise  of  irritation.  There  followed  a  long  space  when  the 
clock  ticked,  and  told  her  that  there  was  no  hope,  things  never 
went  well  on  this  earth.  Then  he  exclaimed  suddenly, 
"Marion." 

"Yes?" 

She  had  hoped  that  there  had  come  into  his  mind  some 
special  aspect  of  Ellen's  magic  which  he  loved  and  desired  to 
share  with  her.  But  he  muttered,  "That  box  on  the  dresser. 
Up  there  on  the  top  shelf." 

She  followed  his  eyes  in  amazement.  "The  scarlet  one  in 
the  corner?  That  belongs  to  cook.  I  think  it's  her  workbox. 
What  about  it?" 

He  stared  at  it  with  a  drowsy  smile.  "You  had  a  cloak 
that  colour  when  I  was  a  child,"  he  murmured,  and  again 
buried  his  head  in  her  lap. 

"Why,  so  I  had,"  she  said  softly,  and  thought  proudly  to 
herself,  "How  he  loves  me !  He  speaks  of  trifling  things  about 
me  as  if  they  were  good  ale  that  he  could  drink.  He  speaks  like 


394*  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

a  sweetheart.  .  .  ."  And  then  caught  her  breath.  "But  that," 
she  went  on,  "is  how  he  ought  to  speak  of  Ellen,  not  of  me." 
A  certain  gaunt  conviction  stood  up  and  stared  into  her  face. 
She  wriggled  in  her  seat  and  looked  down  on  her  strong,  com- 
petent hands,  and  said  to  herself  uneasily :  "I  wish  life  could 
be  settled  by  doing  things  and  not  by  thinking.  .  .  ."  But  the 
conviction  had,  by  its  truthfulness,  rammed  in  the  gates  of  her 
mind.  She  cried  out  to  herself  in  anguish:  "Of  course!  Of 
course !  He  cannot  love  Ellen  because  he  loves  me  too  much ! 
He  has  nothing  left  to  love  her  with !"  A  tide  of  exultation 
surged  through  her,  but  she  knew  that  this  was  the  movement 
within  her  of  the  pride  that  leads  to  death.  For  if  Richard 
went  on  loving  her  over-much,  the  present  would  become  hid- 
eous as  she  had  never  thought  that  the  circumstances  of  her 
splendid  son  could  do.  The  girl  would  grieve;  and  she  would 
as  soon  that  Spring  itself  should  have  .its  heart  hurt  as  dear 
little  Ellen.  And  there  would  be  no  future.  She  would  have 
no  grandchildren.  When  she  died  he  would  be  so  lonely.  .  .  . 
And  it  was  her  own  fault.  All  her  life  long  she  had  let  him 
see  how  she  wanted  love  and  how  she  had  been  deprived  of  it 
by  Harry's  failure;  and  so  he  had  given  her  all  he  had,  even 
that  which  he  should  have  kept  for  his  own  needs.  "What  can 
I  do  to  put  this  right?"  she  asked  herself.  "What  can  I  do?" 

She  found  that  his  eyes  were  staring  up  at  her  from  her  lap. 
"Mother,  what's  the  matter?" 

"The  matter?" 

"You  were  looking  at  me  like  a  judge  who's  passing  sen- 
tence." 

"Well,  perhaps  I  am,"  she  said  wearily.  "Every  mother 
is  a  judge  who  sentences  the  children  for  the  sins  of  the 
father." 

His  face  grew  dark,  as  it  always  did  when  he  thought  of  his 
father.  "Well,  if  you  had  done  that  I  should  have  had  a  pretty 
bad  time." 

It  occurred  to  her  that  there  was  a  way,  an  easy  way,  by 
which  she  could  free  Richard  from  his  excessive  love  for  her. 
He  would  not  love  her  any  more  if  she  told  him.  .  .  .  "But, 
oh,  I  couldn't  tell  him  that,"  her  spirit  groaned.  "It  is  against 
nature  that  anyone  but  me  should  know  of  that.  It  would 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  395 

spoil  it  to  speak  of  it."  But  there  was  no  other  way.  If  she 
were  to  go  away  from  him  he  would  follow  her.  There  was 
no  other  way. 

She  shivered  and  smiled  down  on  him,  into  his  answering 
eyes.  It  was  strange  to  think  that  this  was  the  last  time  they 
would  ever  look  at  each  other  quite  like  that.  She  prepared 
to  bring  herself  down  like  a  hammer  on  her  own  delicate  re- 
luctances. 

"Hush,  Richard,"  she  said.  "You  shouldn't  talk  like  that. 
Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  told  you  long  ago  that  your  father 
and  I  made  it  up  before  he  died." 

He  picked  himself  up  and  stood  looking  down  on  her. 

"Yes,  the  day  before  he  died  we  made  it  up,"  she  began, 
but  fell  silent  because  of  the  beating  of  her  heart. 

Presently  he  broke  out.  "What  do  you  mean?  Tell  me 
what  you  mean." 

"Why,  let's  see,  it  was  like  this,"  she  continued.  "It  was 
in  the  afternoon.  Half-past  two,  I  think.  I  was  baking  a 
cake  for  your  tea.  Of  course  that  was  in  the  old  kitchen,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  house,  which  opened  into  the  farmyard. 
Well,  I  looked  up  and  saw  your  father  standing  in  the  door- 
way. I  knew  that  meant  that  something  strange  was  happen- 
ing. From  his  coming  at  all,  for  one  thing.  And  because  he 
hadn't  got  the  dogs  with  him.  I  knew  that  meant  he'd  wanted 
to  be  alone,  which  he  hardly  ever  did.  Those  were  the  two 
greyhounds  he  had  after  Lesbia  and  Catullus  died.  How 
funny — how  funny  to  think  I  never  knew  their  names."  This 
measure  of  how  utterly  she  and  her  lover  had  been  exiled  from 
each  other's  lives  filled  her  eyes  with  tears.  She  encouraged 
them,  so  that  Richard  might  see  them  and  be  angry  with  her. 

Something  about  his  silence  assured  her  that  she  had  suc- 
ceeded. She  went  on  chokingly:  "He  said,  'Well,  Marion?' 
I  said,  'Well,  Harry?  Come  in,  if  you  wish  to/  But  I  went 
on  baking  my  cake.  He  came  and  stood  quite  close  to  me. 
There  was  a  pile  of  sultanas  on  the  table,  and  he  helped  him- 
self to  one  or  two.  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  said,  'Marion, 
I've  got  to  have  an  operation,  and  they  say  I'm  pretty  bad.  I 
did  so  want  to  come  and  see  you/  " 

Richard  spoke  in  a  voice  as  quiet  as  hers.     "The  whining 


396  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

cur !  The  snivelling  cur !  To  come  to  you  when  he  was  afraid, 
after  what  he'd  left  you  to  for  years." 

"Oh,  hush!"  she  prayed.  "He  is  dead,  and  he  was  your 
father.  Well,  I  took  him  *into  the  other  room  and  gave  him  a 
cup  of  tea,  and  he  told  me  all  about  it.  Poor  Harry!  He'd 
had  a  lot  of  pain.  And  dying  is  a  dreadful  thing,  if  you  aren't 
old.  I'm  fifty,  but  I  should  be  terribly  frightened  to  die.  And 
Harry  was  not  much  over  forty.  I  remember  him  saying  just 
like  a  child,  'I  wonder,  now,  if  there  is  another  world,  will  it 
be  as  jolly  as  this  ?' " 

"The  brute!  The  beast!  A  jolly  world  he'd  made  for 
you!" 

"Oh,  Richard,  don't  be  too  hard  on  him.  And  don't  you 
see  that  he  said  that  sort  of  thing  because  he  really  was  like 
a  child  and  didn't  realise  what  life  was,  and  consequently  he 
hadn't  ever  had  any  idea  what  it  had  been  like  for  me  ?  Really, 
really  he  hadn't  understood." 

"Hadn't  understood  leaving  you  to  Peacey?  Mother — if 
I'd  done  that  to  a  woman,  what  would  you  have  said  ?" 

"But,  dear,  of  course  one  has  a  higher  standard  for  one's 
son  than  for  one's  husband.  One  expects  much  more." 

"Why?" 

"Perhaps  because  one's  sure  of  getting  it."  She  tried  to 
smile  into  his  eyes  and  coquette  with  him  as  she  had  used  to  do. 
But  he  was  like  a  house  with  shuttered  windows.  She  trembled 
and  went  on:  "Well,  we  talked.  He  asked  a  lot  about  you. 
Dear,  you  can't  think  what  it  meant  to  him  not  to  have  you 
with  him.  You  don't  care  about  children.  I've  been  worried 
about  that  sometimes.  But  that'll  come.  I'm  sure  it  will.  But 
men  like  him  ache  for  sons.  If  they  haven't  got  them  they 
feel  like  a  mare  that's  missed  her  spring.  Daughters  don't 
matter.  That's  because  a  son's  a  happier  thing  than  a  daughter 
—there's  something  a  little  sad  about  women,  don't  you  think, 
Richard?  I  suppose  it's  something  to  do  with  this  business 
of  having  children — and  men  like  that  do  so  love  happiness. 
He  had  coveted  you  most  terribly  when  he  saw  you  about  the 
lanes.  Truly  he  had.  Then  he  said  he  felt  tired,  and  he  lay 
down  on  the  couch.  I  covered  him  with  a  rug,  and  he  had  a 
little  sleep.  Then  he  woke  up  and  said  he  must  go  because 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  397 

there  was  a  solicitor  coming  at  four,  and  he  was  going  to  set- 
tle everything  so  that  it  was  all  right  for  you  and  me.  Then 
we  said  good-bye.  And  on  the  step  he  turned  round  and  asked 
if  I  thought  you  would  like  a  Sealyham  pup.  And  I  said  I 
thought  you  would." 

"Mother,  it  wasn't  Punch?" 

"Yes.    It  was  Punch." 

She  noted  the  murderous  gesture  of  his  hands  with  bitter 
rapture.  He  had  loved  that  dog,  but  now  he  wished  he  could 
hail  it  out  of  death  so  that  he  could  send  it  back  there  cruelly. 
He  was  then  capable  of  rooting  up  old  affections.  She  was 
not  permitted  to  hope  for  anything  better. 

She  pretended  anger.  "You've  taken  more  than  a  dog  from 
him.  You  know  that  it's  his  money  that's  made  life  so  easy 
for  us." 

"I  should  have  had  that  by  right.  And  you  should  have 
been  at  Torque  Hall." 

The  thought  of  what  Torque  Hall  would  have  been  at  this 
hour  if  he  had,  so  full  of  lovely  sleeping  sons  and  daughters, 
made  her  sigh.  She  went  on  dully:  "Well,  that's  all.  He 
turned  at  the  gate  and  waved  good-bye.  And  the  next  day 
.when  you  came  in  from  school  you  told  me  he  was  dead." 
For  a  time  she  looked  down  into  the  depths  of  her  old  sorrow. 
When  she  raised  her  eyes,  she  was  appalled  by  his  harsh  re- 
fusal to  believe  that  there  was  any  beauty  in  her  story,  and 
she  forgot  why  she  was  telling  it,  and  stammered  out :  "Rich- 
ard, Richard,  don't  you  understand?  Don't  you  feel  about 
Ellen  that  there  was  a  part  of  you  that  loved  her  long  before 
you  ever  met?  It  was  like  that  with  Harry  and  me.  There 
was  a  part  in  each  of  us  that  loved  the  other  long  before  we 
knew  each  other — and  though  Harry  left  me  and  I  was  bitter 
against  him,  it  didn't  matter.  That  part  of  us  went  on  loving 

all  the  time,  and  making  something — something "  Her 

hands  fluttered  before  her;  she  gasped  for  some  image  to  ex- 
press the  high  spiritual  business  that  had  been  afoot,  and  her 
eyes  rolled  in  ecstasy  till  they  met  his  cold  glance.  "It  is  so !" 
she  cried  defiantly. 

The  silence  throbbed  and  was  hot.  She  dropped  her  head 
on  her  hand  and  envied  the  quiet,  moonlit  marshes. 


398  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  moved  towards  the  door. 
"I'm  going  to  bed,"  he  said. 

"That's  right,"  she  agreed,  and  rose  and  began  to  clear  the 
table.  Uneasily  he  stood  and  watched  her. 

"Where  does  the  Registrar  live?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"The  Registrar?" 

"Yes.  I  want  to  go  to-morrow  and  put  up  the  banns,  or 
whatever  it  is  one  does." 

"Of  course,  of  course.  Well,  the  registrar's  named  Wood- 
ham.  He  lives  in  the  house  next  the  school.  'Mizpah,'  I 
think  they  call  it.  He's  there  only  in  the  afternoon.  Did  you 
specially  want  to  go  to-morrow?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "Good-night." 

When  he  had  gone  upstairs  she  lifted  her  skirts  and  waltzed 
round  the  table.  "Surely  I've  earned  the  right  to  dance  a  little 
now,"  she  thought  grimly.  But  it  was  not  very  much  fun  to 
dance  alone,  so  she  went  up  to  her  room,  .shielding  her  eyes 
with  her  hand  as  she  passed  his  door.  She  flung  herself 
violently  down  on  the  bed,  as  if  it  were  a  well  and  there  would 
be  the  splash  of  water  and  final  peace.  She  had  lost  every- 
thing. She  had  lost  Richard.  When  she  had  trodden  on  that 
loose  board  in  the  passage,  that  shut  door  might  so  easily  have 
opened.  She  had  lost  the  memory  that  had  been  the  sustenance 
of  her  inmost,  her  most  apprehensive  and  despairing  soul. 
For  it  was  the  same  memory  now  that  she  had  spoken  of  it. 
Virtue  had  gone  out  of  it.  But  she  was  too  fatigued  to  grieve, 
and  presently  there  stood  by  her  bedside  a  phantom  Harry, 
a  pouting  lad  complaining  of  his  own  mortality.  She  put  out 
her  hand  to  him  and  crooned,  "There,  there !"  and  told  herself 
she  must  not  fidget  if  he  were  there,  for  the  dead  were  used 
to  quietness ;  and  profound  sleep  covered  her. 

Suddenly  she  awoke  and  found  herself  staring  towards  panes 
exquisite  with  the  frost's  engravings,  and  beyond  them  a  blue 
sky  which  made  it  seem  that  this  earth  was  a  flaw  at  the  heart 
of  a  jewel.  Words  were  on  her  lips.  "Christ  is  risen,  Christ 
is  risen."  It  was  something  she  had  read  in  a  book;  she  did 
not  know  why  she  was  saying  it.  The  clock  said  that  it  was 
half-past  eight,  so  she  leaped  out  of  bed  into  the  vibrant  cold, 
and  bathed  and  dressed.  Her  sense  of  ruin  was  like  lead, 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  399 

but  was  somehow  the  cause  of  exultation  in  her  heart  as  the 
clapper  is  the  cause  of  the  peal  of  a  bell.  She  went  and 
knocked  on  Ellen's  door.  There  was  no  answer,  so  she  stole 
in  and  stood  at  the  end  of  the  bed,  and  looked  with  laughter 
on  the  heap  of  bedclothes,  the  pair  of  unravelling  plaits  that 
were  all  that  was  to  be  seen  of  the  girl. 

"Ellen,"  she  said. 

The  child  woke  up  as  children  do,  stretching  and  sulking. 
Marion  loved  her.  She  must  suffice  instead  of  the  other  child, 
the  boy  that  should  have  slept  in  the  room  of  the  corridor  in 
Torque  Hall. 

"Ellen,  something  wonderful  has  happened.  Guess  what 
it  is." 

Ellen  lay  on  her  back  and  speculated  sleepily.  Her  little 
nose  waggled  like  a  rabbit's.  Suddenly  she  shot  up  her  head. 

"I  know.    We've  got  the  vote." 

"Not  quite  as  good  as  that.     But  Richard's  come." 

The  girl  sat  up.    "When  did  he  come?" 

"Last  night." 

"Last  night?  Would  I  have  seen  him  if  I'd  stayed  up 
longer?" 

"No.  He  came  very  late  indeed.  It  was  really  this  morn- 
ing." 

Ellen  sighed  with  relief.  "Then  the  occasion's  pairfect, 
for  I've  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with.".  She  put  her  hand 
on  one  side  and  said  shyly,  "Please,  I'd  like  to  get  up."  Marion 
still  hovered,  till  she  noticed  the  girl's  eyes  were  unhappy  and 
that  she  was  holding  the  sheet  high  up  to  the  base  of  her 
white  throat,  and  perceived  that  she  was  too  modest  to  rise 
when  anyone  else  was  in  the  room.  "How  wise  you  are,  my 
dear,"  she  thought,  and  she  left  the  room.  "You  are  quite 
right;  secrets  lose  their  value  when  they  are  disclosed.  .  .  ." 

She  went  down  and  ate  her  breakfast  before  a  long  window 
that  showed  a  glittering,  rimy  world  and  in  the  foreground  a 
plump,  strutting  robin.  Ordinarily  she  would  not  have  been 
amused  by  his  red-waisted  convexity,  for  she  regarded  animals 
with  an  extreme  form  of  that  indifference  she  felt  for  all  living 
beings  who  were  not  members  of  her  family,  but  to-day  she 
scattered  it  some  crumbs.  After  that  she  walked  to  the  end 


400  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  the  garden  and  looked  down  on  the  estuary's  morning  face. 
It  was  a  silver  plate  on  which  there  lay  but  a  drop  of  deeply 
blue  water,  and  the  floating  boats  seemed  like  flies  settled  there 
to  drink.  The  shining  green  marshes  were  neatly  ruled  with 
lines  of  unmelted  frost  that  scored  the  unsunned  westerly 
side  of  every  bank,  and  the  tiny  grizzled  trees  and  houses  here 
and  there  might  have  been  toys  made  of  crockery,  like  the 
china  cottages  that  stand  on  farmstead  mantelpieces.  From 
the  chimneys  above  the  rime-checkered  slates  of  the  harbour 
houses  a  hundred  smoke-plumes  stood  tenuous  and  erect,  like 
fastidious  and  honest  souls,  in  the  crystalline  air.  This  was 
an  undismayed  world  that  had  scoured  itself  cheerfully  for  the 
dawn,  no  matter  what  that  might  bring.  She  nodded  her  head, 
seeing  the  lesson  that  it  read  to  her. 

Ellen  ran  across  the  lawn  to  her,  beetle-black  in  her  mourn- 
ing, but  capering  as  foals  do. 

"I'll  not  have  my  breakfast  till  he  does,"  she  announced. 
"Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  him?" 

"Nothing,  my  dear,  I'm  afraid.  But  look  at  the  view. 
Isn't  it  lovely?" 

The  girl  clapped  her  hands.  "Oh,  it's  bonny.  And  it's 
neat.  It's  redded  itself  up  for  Richard's  coming." 

"'Redded  itself  up'?    What  does  that  mean?" 

"Don't  you  use  the  word  here?  English  seems  to  be  a 
terribly  poor  language.  Redding  up  means  making  everything 
tidy  and  neat,  so  that  you're  ready  for  anything." 

That  was  what  one  must  do:  red  oneself  up.  It  was  true 
that  it  was  no  use  doing  that  for  Richard  any  more,  and  that 
there  was  no  one  else  in  the  world  for  whom  she  wished  to  be 
ready.  But  she  must  be  schooled  by  the  spectacle  of  the  earth, 
for  here  it  was  shining  fair,  and  yet  it  had  nothing  to  expect ; 
it  was  but  the  icing  of  a  cake  destined  for  some  sun's  swal- 
lowing. 

"Is  Richard  a  good  riser?"  asked  Ellen,  adopting  a  severe, 
servant-engaging  tone<to  disguise  the  truth  that  she  was  trem- 
bling with  desire  to  see  her  lover. 

"Usually,  but  he  may  be  late  to-day  since  he  went  to  bed 
such  a  short  time  ago.  He  evidently  isn't  up  yet,  for  his  blind's 
still  down.  That's  his  room  on  the  left." 


CHAPTER  MI  THE  JUDGE  401 

But  as  they  gazed  the  blind  went  up,  and  they  saw  him  turn- 
ing away  from  the  window. 

"Oh,  why  didn't  he  look  at  us !"  cried  Ellen.  "Why  didn't 
he  look  at  us?" 

"Because  he  is  thinking  of  nothing  but  how  soon  he  can  get 
down  to  breakfast  and  meet  you,"  said  Marion;  but  being 
aware  of  the  quality  of  her  blood,  which  was  his,  she  knew  that 
he  had  not  seen  his  women  and  the  glittering  world  because  he 
had  risen  blind  with  sullenness. 

"Will  he  be  long,  do  you  think?"  she  pondered.  "Not 
that  I'd  want  him  to  miss  his  bath."  She  broke  into  a  kind  of 
Highland  fling,  looking  down  on  the  blue  and  silver  estuary  and 
chanting,  "Lovely,  lovely,"  but  desisted  suddenly  and  asked: 
"Mrs.  Yaverland,  do  you  think  there's  a  future  life  ?" 

Marion  said  lazily,  "I  shouldn't  have  thought  you  need  to 
think  out  that  problem  yet  awhile." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  worrying  for  myself.  But  on  a  fine  day  like 
this  I  just  hate  to  think  my  mother's  not  getting  the  benefit 
of  it  somewhere.  And  seeing  your  age,  I  thought  you  might 
have  begun  to  give  the  matter  consideration." 

Marion  resolved  to  treasure  that  remark  for  repetition  to 
Richard ;  and  was  dashed  to  remember  that  it  was  probable  in 
future  they  would  not  share  their  jokes.  "Well,  I  don't  think 
there's  any  evidence  for  it  at  all,"  she  said  aloud ;  "but  I  don't 
think  that  proves  that  there  isn't  one.  I  don't  think  we  would 
be  allowed  to  know  if  there  was  one,  for  I'm  sure  that  if  most 
people  knew  for  certain  there  was  going  to  be  another  world 
they  wouldn't  make  the  best  of  this."  But  she  saw,  from  the 
way  that  Ellen  continued  to  stare  down  at  her  toes,  that  that 
abstract  comfort  had  not  been  of  any  service,  so  she  parted 
with  yet  another  secret.  "But  I  do  know  that  when  Richard's 
father  died  all  the  trees  round  the  house  seemed  to  know  where 
he  had  gone." 

Ellen  raised  wet  but  happier  eyes.  "Why,  I  felt  like  that 
when  they  brought  mother's  coffin  out  of  the  Fever  Hospital. 
Only  then  it  was  the  hills  in  the  distance  that  knew — the  Pent- 
land  Hills.  But  do  you  really  think  that  was  true?" 

"I  knew  it  was  then,"  said  Marion.  "If  I  am  less  certain 
now  it  is  only  because  I  have  forgotten." 


402  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

They  nodded  wisely.    "After  all,  there  must  be  something." 

"Yes,  there  must  be  something.  .  .  ." 

Ellen  began  to  dance  again.  Marion  turned  aside  and  tried 
to  lose  the  profound  malaise  that  the  reticent  feel  when  they 
have  given  up  a  secret  in  thinking  how  well  worth  while  it  had 
been,  since  Ellen  was  such  a  dear,  young,  loving  thing.  She 
found  consolation  in  this  frost-polished  morning:  the  pale, 
bright  sky  in  which  the  light  stood  naked,  her  abandoned  veil 
of  clouds  floating  above  the  horizon ;  the  swoop  and  dance  over 
the  marshes  of  the  dazzling  specks  that  were  seagulls ;  the  fur 
of  rime  that  the  dead  leaves  on  the  hedgerow  wore,  and  the 
fine  jewellery-work  of  the  glistening  grass  tufts  in  its  shadow. 
The  world  had  neglected  nothing  in  its  redding  up. 

At  her  elbow  Ellen  spoke  shyly.  "Richard's  come  down  at 
last.  May  I  go  in  to  him,  Mrs.  Yaverland?" 

"Of  course  you  may.  You  can  do  anything  you  like.  From 
now  onwards  he's  yours,  not  mine." 

Ellen  ran  in  and  Richard  came  to  the  window  to  meet  her. 
As  he  drew  her  over  the  threshold  by  both  hands  he  called  down 
the  garden,  "Good  morning,  mother."  But  Marion  had  per- 
ceived that  from  the  moment  of  seeing  her  his  face  had  worn 
the  dark  colour  of  estrangement.  She  turned  and  walked 
blindly  away,  not  noticing  that  Mabel  had  come  out  to  bring 
her  the  morning  post,  and  was  following  at  her  heels,  till  the 
girl  coughed. 

There  were  four  letters.  She  opened  them  with  avidity, 
for  they  were  certificates  that  there  were  other  things  in  life 
as  well  as  Richard  with  which  she  could  occupy  herself.  Two 
were  bills,  the  first  from  her  dressmakers  and  the  other  from 
the  dealer  who  had  sold  her  some  coloured  glass  a  few  weeks 
before;  and  there  was  a  dividend  warrant  for  her  to  sign  and 
send  to  her  bankers.  Sweeping  about  the  lawn  as  on  a  stage, 
she  resolved  to  buy  clothes  that  would  make  her  look  like 
other  untormented  women,  and  more  hangings  and  pictures 
and  vases  to  make  her  house  look  gay.  Then  she  observed  that 
the  fourth  envelope  was  addressed  in  the  handwriting  of  the 
son  whom  she  could  not  love. 

She  looked  towards  the  house  and  saw  the  son  whom  she 


CHAPTER  vii  THE  JUDGE  403 

loved,  but  he  did  not  see  her.     Ellen's  red  head  was  close  to 
his  shoulder. 

It  was  horrible  handwriting  outside  and  inside  the  envelope : 
a  weak  running  of  ink  that  sagged  downwards  in  the  second 
half  of  every  line  and  added  feeble  flourishes  to  every  capital 
that  gave  the  whole  an  air  of  insincerity.  It  had  the  disgusting 
appearance  of  a  begging  letter,  and  indeed  that  was  what  it 
was.  It  begged  for  love,  for  condonation  of  the  writer's 
loathsomeness.  She  held  it  far  off  as  she  read: 

"DEAR  MOTHER, 

"You  will  be  wondering  why  I  had  not  written  to  you.  You 
will  know  soon  that  something  you  would  not  have  expected 
has  happened  to  me.  I  am  not  sure  how  you  will  take  it. 
But  I  will  be  with  you  in  two  days,  and  then  you  will  see  for 
yourself.  I  hope  you  will  not- harden  your  heart  against  me, 
dear  mother.  Your  loving  son, 

"ROGER." 

There  was  no-  address,  but  the  postmark  was  Chelmsford. 
No  doubt  he  had  written  in  the  cells.  For  the  letter  could 
have  no  other  meaning  but  that  the  disgrace  she  had  foreseen 
had  at  last  arrived. 

She  could  not  bear  to  be  out  there  alone  on  that  wide  lawn, 
in  the  bright  light,  in  the  intense  cold.  She  ran  to  the  win- 
dow, and  not  daring  to  look  in  lest  they  should  be  very  close 
together,  she  called,  "Richard,  Roger  is  coming." 

There  was  a  noise  of  a  chair  being  pushed  back,  and  Richard 
stood  over  her,  asking:  "When?  Has  he  written?" 

She  held  out  the  letter. 

There  was  the  rustling  of  paper  crushed  in  the  hand,  and  she 
looked  up  into  his  burning  and  compassionate  eyes.  Her  head 
dropped  back  on  her  throat;  she  grew  weak  with  happiness. 
He  was  her  own  once  more,  if  she  would  but  disclose  in  what 
great  fear  and  misery  she  stood.  But  in  the  room  behind  there 
sounded  the  chink  of  china.  Little  Ellen  was  bending  over 
the  table,  putting  the  tea-cosy  over  Richard's  egg. 

Marion  said  levelly :  "Well,  I  shall  be  glad  of  Roger's  com- 


404  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

pany  while  you're  occupied  with  Ellen."  She  added  reprov- 
ingly, as  if  she  were  speaking  to  a  child:  "You  mustn't  be 
jealous  of  the  poor  thing.  I  saw  last  night  that  you  can  be 
jealous.  .  .  ." 

His  eyes  blazed  at  the  indecency.    He  stepped  back  from  the 
window. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ELLEN  was  very  glad  that  Marion  was  going  out  for  the 
whole  of  the  afternoon,  for  then  she  would  be  alone  with 
Richard ;  and  though  they  had  been  out  together  all  the  morn- 
ing, there  had  been  that  in  the  atmosphere  which  made  a 
third.  The  whole  time  it  had  been  apparent  that  the  coming 
of  this  Roger,  who  must  be  an  awful  man,  was  upsetting  him 
terribly.  When  he  had  taken  her  out  into  the  garden  after 
breakfast  he  had  looked  up  into  the  vault  of  the  morning  and 
had  put  his  hand  to  his  head,  making  a  sound  of  envy,  as  if 
he  felt  a  contrast  between  'ts  crystal  quality  and  his  own  state 
of  mind.  He  had  liked  standing  with  her  at  the  edge  of  the 
garden  and  setting  names  to  the  facets  of  the  landscape,  which 
he  plainly  loved  as  he  had  never  told  her  that  he  did.  He 
really  cared  for  the  estuary  as  she  did  for  the  Pentlands ;  she 
need  never  be  afraid  of  telling  him  anything  that  she  felt,  for 
it  had  always  turned  out  that  he  felt  something  just  like  it. 
But  that  pleasure  had  not  lasted  long.  He  had  shown  her  the 
gap  where  the  Medway  found  its  way  among  the  low  hills  on 
the  Kentish  coast,  and  had  ..old  her  that  the  golden  filaments 
the  sunlight  discovered  over  the  water  were  the  masts  and 
funnels  of  great  ships,  and  he  was  pointing  westward  to  the 
black  gunpowder  hulks  that  lay  off  Kerith  Island,  when  his 
forefinger  dropped.  Something  in  the  orchard  below  had  way- 
laid his  attention.  Ellen  looked  down  the  steep  bank  to  see 
what  it  was,  and  saw  Marion  sitting  in  the  low  crook  of  an 
apple-tree.  She  snatched  at  contemptuous  notice  of  the  way 
that  the  tail  of  the  woman's  gown,  which  anyway  was  far  too 
good  for  any  sensible  person  to  wear  just  going  about  the  house 
and  garden  in  the  morning,  was  lying  in  a  patch  of  undispersed 
frost ;  but  fear  re-entered  her  heart.  Marion  was  sitting  quite 
still  with  her  back  to  them,  yet  the  distant  view  of  her  held 
the  same  terrifying  quality  of  excess  as  her  near  presence. 
There  could  be  no  more  looking  at  this  brilliant  and  candid  face 

405 


406  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  the  earth,  because  there  was  not  anywhere  so  much  force 
as  in  this  squat,  stubborn  body,  clayish  with  middle-age. 

Richard  said:  "No,  she  isn't  crying.  She  isn't  moving.  I 
should  feel  a  fool  if  I  went  down  and  she  didn't  want  me." 
And  because  his  voice  was  thin  and  husky  like  a  nervous  child's, 
and  because  he  was  answering  a  question  that  she  had  not 
asked,  Ellen  was  more  afraid.  This  woman  was  throwing  over 
them  a  net  of  events  as  excessive  as  herself.  .  .  . 

But  these  were  only  the  things  that  one  thought  about  life. 
As  soon  as  one  stopped  thinking  about  them  they  ceased  to  be. 
The  world  was  not  really  tragic.  When  he  drew  her  back  to 
the  middle  of  the  lawn  where  they  could  not  see  Marion  she 
was  happy  again,  and  hoped  for  pleasure,  and  asked  him  if  it 
were  not  possible  to  go  boating  on  the  estuary  even  now,  since 
the  water  looked  so  smooth.  He  answered  that  winter  boating 
was  possible  and  had  its  own  beauty,  and  told  her,  with  an 
appreciation  that  she  had  to  concede  was  touched  with  frenzy 
in  its  emphasis,  but  which  she  welcomed  because  it  was  an 
escape  from  worry,  of  a  row  he  had  had  one  late  December 
afternoon.  He  spoke  of  finding  his  way  among  white  oily 
creeks  that  wound  among  gleaming  ebony  mud-banks  over 
which  showed  the  summits  of  the  distant  hills  that  had  been 
skeletonised  by  a  thin  snowfall;  and  of  icy  air  that  was  made 
glamorous  as  one  had  thought  only  warmth  could  be  by  the 
blended  lights  of  the  red  sun  on  his  left  and  the  primrose 
moon  on  the  right.  She  leaped  for  joy  at  that,  and  asked  him 
to  take  her  on  the  water  soon,  and  he  told  her  if  she  liked  he 
would  take  her  down  to  Prittlebay  and  show  her  his  motor- 
boat  which  was  lying  up  in  the  boathouse  of  the  Thamesmouth 
Yacht  Club  there. 

Their  ambulations  had  brought  them  to  the  orchard  gate 
again,  but  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  said,  with  what  struck  her 
as  a  curious  abandonment  of  the  languor  by  which  he  usually 
asserted  to  the  world  that  he  refused,  to  hurry,  "Go  and  put  on 
your  hat  and  we'll  start  at  once."  So  they  went  out  and  has- 
tened through  the  buoyant  air  down  to  the  harbour  and  along 
the  cinder-track  to  Prittlebay  esplanade,  where  she  forgot 
everything  in  astonishment  at  the  new,  bright,  arbitrary  scene. 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  407 

There  was  what  seemed  to  her,  a  citizen  of  Edinburgh,  a  com- 
ically unhistoric  air  about  the  place.  The  gaily-coloured  rows 
of  neat  dwellings  that  debouched  on  the  esplanade,  and  the 
line  of  hotels  and  boarding-houses  that  faced  the  sea,  were 
as  new  as  the  pantomime  songs  of  last  Christmas  or  this  year's 
slang.  One  might  conceive  them  being  designed  by  architects 
who  knew  as  little  of  the  past  as  children  know  of  death,  and 
painted  by  fresh-faced  people  to  match  themselves,  and  there 
was  a  romping  arbitrariness  about  the  design  and  decoration 
of  the  place  which  struck  the  same  note  of  innocence. 

The  town  council  who  passed  the  plans  for  the  Byzantine 
shoulder  the  esplanade  thrust  out  on  to  the  sand  on  the  slen- 
der provocation  of  a  bandstand,  the  man  who  had  built  his 
hotel  with  a  roof  covered  with  cupolas  and  minarets  and  had 
called  it  "Westward  Ho!"  must,  Ellen  thought,  be  lovely 
people,  like  Shakespearean  fools.  She  liked  it,  too,  when  they 
came  to  the  vulgarer  part  of  the  town  and  the  place  assumed 
the  strange  ceremented  air  that  a  pleasure  city  wears  in  winter. 
The  houses  had  fallen  back,  and  the  esplanade  was  overhung 
now  by  a  steep  green  slope  on  which  asphalt  walks  linked  shel- 
ters, in  which  no  one  sat,  and  wandered  among  brown  and 
purple  congregations  of  bare  trees,  at  its  base  were  scattered 
wooden  chalets  and  bungalows,  which  offered  to  take  the  pas- 
ser-by's photograph  or  to  sell  ice-cream.  The  sea-salt  in  the 
air  had  licked  off  the  surface  of  the  paint,  so  that  they  had  a 
greyish,  spectral  appearance.  The  photographs  in  the  cracked 
show-cases  were  brown  and  vaporous,  and  the  announcements 
of  vanilla  ice-cream  were  but  breaths  of  lettering,  blown  on 
stained  walls.  It  seemed  a  place  for  the  pleasuring  of  mild, 
unexigent  phantoms,  no  doubt  the  ghosts  of  the  simple  people 
who  lived  in  the  other  part  of  the  town. 

She  was  amused  by  it  all,  and  was  sorry  when  they  came  to 
the  Thamesmouth  Yacht  Club,  a  bungalow  glossy  with  new 
paint  which  looked  very  opaque  among  the  phantasmic  build- 
ings. With  its  verandah,  that  was  polished  like  a  deck,  and 
its  spotless  life-belts  and  brilliant  port-hole  windows,  it  had 
the  air  of  a  ship  which  had  been  exiled  to  land  but  was  trying 
to  bear  up;  and  so,  too,  had  the  three  old  captains,  spruce 
little  men,  with  sea-reflecting  eyes  and  pointed,  grizzled  beards, 


408  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

whom  Richard  brought  out  of  the  club  after  he  had  got  the 
boathouse  keys.  Ellen  liked  them  very  much  indeed.  She 
had  never  before  had  any  chance  of  seeing  the  beautiful  and 
generous  emotion  that  old  men  who  have  lived  bravely  feel 
for  young  men  whom  they  see  carrying  on  the  tradition  of 
brave  life,  and  it  made  her  want  to  cry  to  see  how  crowsfeet 
of  pleasure  came  at  the  corners  of  their  eyes  when  they  looked 
at  Richard,  and  how  they  liked  to  slap  his  strong  back  with 
their  rough  hands,  which  age  was  making  delicate  with  filigree 
of  veins  and  wrinkles.  And  she  could  see,  too,  that  they  liked 
her.  They  looked  at  her  as  if  they  thought  she  was  pretty, 
and  teased  her  about  the  Votes-for-Women  button  she  was 
wearing,  but  quite  nicely. 

When  they  were  standing  under  the  dark  eaves  of  the  boat- 
house,  looking  up  at  the  gleaming  tawny  sides  of  the  motor- 
launch,  one  of  the  old  men  pointed  at  the  golden  letters  that 
spelt  "Gwendolen"  at  the  prow,  and  said,  "Well,  Yaverland,  I 
suppose  you'll  have  forgotten  who  she  is  these  days."  Another 
added:  "He'd  better,  if  he's  going  to  marry  a  Suffragette." 
And  all  broke  into  clear,  frosty  laughter.  She  cried  out  in 
protest,  and  told  them  that  Suffragettes  were  not  really  fierce 
at  all,  and  that  the  newspapers  just  told  a  lot  of  lies  about 
them,  and  that  anyway  it  was  only  old-fashioned  women  who 
were  jealous,  and  they  listened  with  smiling,  benevolent  defer- 
ence, which  she  enjoyed  until  her  eyes  lighted  on  Richard,  and 
she  saw  that  he  was  more  absorbed  in  her  effect  on  his  friends 
than  in  herself. 

For  a  moment  she  felt  as  lonely  as  she  had  been  before  she 
knew  him,  and  she  looked  towards  the  boat  and  stared  at  the 
reflection  of  the  group  in  the  polished  side  and  wished  that  one 
of  the  dim,  featureless  shapes  she  saw  there  had  been  her 
mother,  or  anyone  who  had  had  a  part  in  her  old  life  in  Edin- 
burgh. She  turned  back  to  the  men  and  brought  the  conver- 
sation to  an  end  with  a  little  laughing  shake  of  the  head,  giving 
them  the  present  of  an  aspect  of  her  beauty  to  induce  them  to  let 
her  mind  go  free.  Again  she  felt  something  that  her  com- 
monsense  forbade  to  be  quite  fear  when  he  did  not  notice  for 
a  minute  that  she  was  wistfully  asking  him  to  take  her  away. 
It  was  all  right,  of  course. 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  409 

When  they  had  said  good-bye  to  the  happy  old  men  and 
were  walking  along  the  promenade,  he  asked:  "What  was  the 
matter,  darling?  Didn't  you  like  them?  They're  really  very 
good  old  sorts" ;  and  understood  perfectly  when  she  answered : 
"I  know  they  are,  but  I  don't  want  anybody  but  you."  There 
was  indeed  vehemence  in  his  reply :  "Yes,  dear,  we  don't  want 
anybody  but  ourselves,  do  we?"  Undoubtedly  there  was  a 
change  in  the  nature  of  the  attention  he  was  giving  her.  In- 
stead of  concentrating  in  that  steady  delighted  survey  of  her- 
self to  which  she  was  accustomed,  he  alternated  between  an 
almost  excessive  interest  in  what  she  was  saying  and  complete 
abstraction,  during  which  he  would  turn  suddenly  aside  and 
drive  his  stick  through  the  ice  on  the  little  pools  at  the  sagging 
outside  edge  of  the  promenade,  his  mouth  contracting  as  if  he 
really  hated  it.  She  hovered  meekly  by  while  he  did  that.  If 
one  went  to  see  a  dear  friend,  whose  charm  and  pride  it  was 
to  live  in  an  exquisitely  neat  and  polished  home,  and  found 
him  pacing  hot-eyed  through  rooms  given  up  to  dirt  and  dis- 
order, one  would  not  rebuke  him,  but  one  would  wait  quietly 
and  soothingly  until  he  desired  to  tell  what  convulsion  of  his 
life  explained  the  abandonment  of  old  habit.  But  her  eyes 
travelled  to  the  luminous,  snow-sugared  hills  that  ran  by  the 
sea  to  the  summit  where  Roothing  Church,  an  evanescent  tower 
of  hazily-irradiated  greyness,  overhung  the  shining  harbour; 
and  her  thoughts  travelled  further  to  the  hills  hidden  behind 
that  point,  and  that  orchard  where  there  sat  the  squat  woman 
who  was  so  much  darker  and  denser  in  substance  than  anything 
else  in  the  glittering,  brittle  world  around  her. 

Ellen  drooped  her  head  and  closed  her  eyes;  the  crackle  of 
the  ice  under  Richard's  stick  sounded  like  the  noise  of  some 
damage  done  within  herself.  She  found  some  consolation  in 
the  thought  that  people  were  always  more  moderate  than  the 
pictures  she  made  of  them  in  their  absence,  but  she  lost  it 
when  she  went  back  into  the  high,  white,  view-invaded  dining- 
room  at  Yaverland's  End.  For  Marion  stood  by  the  hearth 
looking  down  into  the  fire,  and  as  Richard  and  Ellen  came  in 
she  turned  an  impassive  face  towards  them,  and  asked  indif- 
ferently, "Have  you  had  a  nice  walk?"  and  fell  to  polishing 
her  nails  with  the  palm  of  her  hand  with  that  trivial,  fribbling 


410  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

gesture  that  was  somehow  more  desperate  than  any  other  be- 
ing's outflung  arms.  She  was  all  that  Ellen  had  remembered, 
and  more.  And  she  had  infected  the  destiny  of  this  house  with 
her  strangeness  even  to  such  small  matters  as  the  peace  of  the 
midday  meal.  For  Mabel  came  in  before  they  had  finished  the 
roast  mutton,  and  said:  "Please,  ma'am,  there's  a  man  want- 
ing to  see  you/'  And  Marion  asked,  with  that  slightly  dis- 
agreeable tone  which  Ellen  had  noticed  always  coloured  her 
voice  when  she  spoke  to  the  girl:  "Who  is  he?"  Mabel  an- 
swered contemptuously:  "He  won't  give  his  name.  He's  a 
very  poor  person,  ma'am.  His  boots  is  right  through,  and 
his  coat's  half  off  his  back.  And  he  says  that  if  he  told  you 
his  name  you  mightn't  see  him.  Shall  I  tell  him  to  go  away  ?" 

But  Marion  had  started  violently.  Her  eyes  were  looking 
into  Richard's.  She  said,  calmly :  "Yes,  I'll  see  him.  Tell  him 
I'll  come  through  in  a  minute." 

Mabel  had  left  the  room.  Marion  and  Richard  continued  to 
stare  <at  each  other  queerly. 

She  murmured  indistinctly,  casually:  "It  may  be.  Both 
Mabel  and  cook  haven't  been  with  me  long.  They  never  saw 
him  here.  They  probably  haven't  seen  him  since  he  was  a 
boy." 

"It  is  the  kind  of  thing,"  said  Richard  grimly,  "that  Roger 
would  say  at  the  back  door  to  a  servant  just  to  make  his  ar- 
rival seem  natural  and  unsuspicious." 

Marion's  head  drooped  far  back  on  her  throat;  her  broad, 
dark  face  suffused  with  the  bloom  of  kind,  sad  passion,  and 
lifted  towards  her  son's  pitying  eyes,  made  Ellen  think  of  a 
pansy  bending  back  under  the  rain.  But  her  mouth,  which 
had  been  a  little  open  and  appealing,  as  if  she  were  asking 
Richard  not  to  be  bitter  but  to  go  on  being  pitiful,  closed 
suddenly  and  smiled.  She  seemed  to  will  and  to  achieve  some 
hardening  change  of  substance.  An  incomprehensible  expres- 
sion irradiated  her  face,  and  she  seemed  to  be  brooding  sen- 
suously on  some  private  hoard  of  satisfaction.  Lightly  she 
rose,  patting  the  hand  Richard  had  stretched  out  to  her  as 
if  it  were  a»  child's,  and  went  out  into  the  kitchen. 

"Richard !"  breathed  Ellen. 

He  went  on  eating. 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  411 

"Richard,"  she  insisted,  "why  did  she  look  like  that?  So 
happy.  Does  she  want  it  to  be  Roger?" 

"God  knows,  God  knows,"  he  said  in  a  cold,  sharp-edged 
voice.  "There  are  lots  of  things  about  her  that  I  don't  under- 
stand." 

Some  moments  passed  before  Marion  came  back.  Her  face 
was  easy,  and  she  said  placidly :  "My  purse,  my  purse.  I  want 
my  purse." 

"It's  on  the  desk,"  said  Richard,  and  rose  and  found  it  for 
her.  He  stood  beside  her  as  she  opened  it  and  began  taking  out 
the  money  slowly,  coin  by  coin,  while  she  hummed  under  her 
breath.  ''Mother!"  he  burst  out  suddenly.  "Who  is  it?" 

"A  ten-shilling  piece  is  what  I  want,"  she  murmured.  "Yes, 
a  ten-shilling  piece.  I  thought  I  had  one.  .  .  .  Oh,  who  is  it? 
Oh,  it's  Henry  Milford.  Do  you  remember  poor  Milford? 
He  was  the  last  cattleman  but  one  in  the  old  days  when  we 
ran  the  farm.  I  had  to  send  him  away  because  he  drank  so 
terribly.  Since  then  he's  gone  down  and  down,  and  now  he's 
on  the  road.  I  must  give  him  something,  poor  creature.  Such 
a  nice  wife  he  had — he  says  she's  in  Chelmsford  workhouse. 
I'll  send  him  on  to  old  Dawkins  at  Dane  End ;  I'll  get  him  to 
give  the  poor  wretch  a  few  days'  work." 

Ellen  disliked  her  as  she  left  the  room.  She  looked  thick 
and  ordinary,  and  was  apparently  absorbed  in  the  mildly  gross 
satisfaction  of  a  well-to-do  woman  at  being  bountiful.  More- 
over, she  had  in  some  way  hurt  Richard,  for  his  face  was  dark 
when  he  came  back  to  the  table. 

But  an  amazement  struck  Ellen  as  she  thought  over  the 
scene.  "Richard,"  she  exclaimed  excitedly,  "is  it  not  just 
wonderful  that  this  man  should  come  to  your  mother  for  help 
after  she'd  put  him  to  the  door?  I'm  sure  she'd  make  a  body 
feel  just  dirt  if  she  was  putting  them  to  the  door.  It  would  be 
a  quiet  affair,  but  awful  uncomfortable.  But  she's  such  a  good 
woman  that,  even  seeing  her  like  that,  he  knew  she  was  the 
one  to  come  to  when  he  was  really  in  trouble.  Do  you  not 
think  it's  like  that?" 

"Oh  yes,"  he  almost  groaned.  "Even  when  she's  at  her 
worst  you  know  that  she's  still  better  than  anyone  else  on  this 
earth." 


412  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

When  Marion  came  back  she  sat  down  at  the  table  without 
noticing  what  seemed  to  Ellen  his  obvious  dejection,  and  began 
to  talk  about  this  man  Milford,  telling  of  the  power  he  had 
over  his  beasts  and  how  a  prize  heifer  that  they  then  had, 
by  the  name  of  Susan  Caraway,  had  fretted  for  three  weeks 
after  he  had  left.  She  said  that  he  gained  this  power  over 
animals  not  by  any  real  love  for  them,  for  he  was  indifferent 
to  them  except  when  he  was  actually  touching  them,  and  would 
always  scamp  his  work  without  regard  for  their  comfort,  but 
simply  by  some  physical  magnetism,  and  pointed  out  that  there 
it  resembled  the  power  some  men  have  over  women.  It  sur- 
prised Ellen  that  she  laughed  as  she  said  that,  and  seemed 
to  find  pleasure  in  the  thought  of  such  a  power.  When  the 
meal  was  over  she  sat  for  a  moment,  gathering  together  the 
breadcrumbs  by  her  plate,  and  said  pensively:  "Yes,  it  might 
quite  easily  have  been  Roger."  Ellen  wondered  how  it  was 
that  Richard  had  always  spoken  of  his  mother  as  if  she  needed 
his  protection,  when  her  voice  was  so  nearly  coarse  with  the 
sense  of  being  able  to  outface  all  encounterable  events,  and 
she  felt  a  flash  of  contempt  for  his  judgment.  She  wished, 
too,  that  when  Marion  rose  from  the  table  he  had  not  followed 
her  so  closely  upstairs  and  hovered  round  her  as  she  took  up 
her  stand  on  the  hearthrug,  with  her  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece 
and  her  foot  in  the  fender,  and  kept  his  eyes  on  her  face  as 
she  settled  down  in  an  armchair.  It  was  just  making  himself 
cheap,  dangling  after  a  woman  who  was  perched  up  on  herself 
like  a  weathercock. 

When  she  said,  "I'm  going  to  walk  over  to  Friar's  End.  Old 
Butterworth  wants  me  to  do  some  repairs  which  I  don't  feel 
inclined  to  do,  so  I  want  to  have  a  look  at  the  place  for  my- 
self," the  announcement  was  so  little  tinged  by  any  sense  of 
the  persons  she  was  addressing  that  she  might  as  well  have 
held  up  a  printed  placard.  Ellen  thought  he  was  a  little  abject 
to  answer,  "So  far  as  I  can  remember,  Butterworth's  rather 
a  rough  specimen.  Wouldn't  you  like  us  to  come  with  you?" 
and  almost  deserved  that  she  did  not  hear.  Such  deafness  ar- 
gued complete  abstraction;  and  indeed,  as  she  turned  towards 
them  and  stood  looking  out  towards  the  river,  her  face  again 
wore  that  incomprehensible  expression  of  secret  and  even  fur- 


CHAPTER  vui  THE  JUDGE  413 

tive  satisfaction.  The  sight  of  it  fell  like  a  whip  on  Richard. 
He  lowered  his  head  and  sat  staring  at  the  floor.  Ellen  cried 
out  to  herself,  "She's  an  aggravating  woman  if  ever  there  was 
one.  It's  every  bit  as  bad  as  not  saying  what  you  feel,  this 
not  saying  what  you  look,"  and  tried  to  pierce  with  her  eyes 
the  dreamy  surface  of  this  gloating.  But  she  could  make  noth- 
ing of  it,  and  looked  back  at  Richard ;  and  shuddered  and  drew 
her  hands  across  her  eyes  when  she  saw  that  he  had  lifted  his 
head  and  was  turning  towards  her  a  face  that  had  become 
the  mirror  of  his  mother's  expression.  He,  too,  was  wrapped 
in  some  exquisite  and  contraband  contentment.  She  raised 
her  brows  in  enquiry,  and  mockingly  he  whispered  back  words 
which  he  knew  she  could  not  hear. 

"I  think  I'll  go  now,"  said  Marion,  from  her  detachment, 
and  left  them.  Ellen  stretched  out  her  arms  above  her  head 
and  cried  shudderingly :  "Why  are  you  looking  at  me  like 
that?"  But  he  would  not  answer,  and  began  to  laugh  quietly. 
"Tell  me!"  she  begged,  but  still  he  kept  silence,  and  seemed 
to  be  fingering  with  his  mind  this  pleasure  that  he  knew  of 
but  would  not  disclose.  It  struck  her  as  another  example  of 
Marion's  dominion  over  the  house  that  her  expression  should 
linger  in  this  room  after  she  had  left  it  and  that  it  should  blot 
out  the  son's  habitual  splendid  look,  and  she  exclaimed  sob- 
bingly:  "Oh,  very  well,  be  a  Cheshire  cat  if  you  feel  called 
to  it,"  and  went  and  pretended  to  look  for  a  volume  in  the 
bookcase.  It  was  annoying  that  he  did  not  come  after  her  at 
once  and  try  to  comfort  her,  but  he  made  no  move  from  his 
seat  until  there  sounded  through  the  house  the  thud  of  the 
closing  front  door. 

She  saw,  a  second  after  that,  the  reflection  of  his  face  gleam- 
ing above  the  shoulder  of  her  own  image  in  the  glass  door  of 
the  bookcase,  and  was  at  first  pleased  and  waited  delightfully 
for  reconciling  kisses;  but  because  the  brightness  of  its  gleam 
told  her  that  he  was  still  smiling,  she  wished  again,  as  she  had 
that  morning  when  she  had  stood  beside  the  smooth,  sherry- 
coloured  boat,  that  among  the  dim  shapes  of  the  mirrored 
world  might  be  one  that  was  her  mother.  She  knew  that  it 
was  too  much  to  ask  of  this  inelastic  universe  that  she  should 
ever  see  her  mother  again  in  this  world,  standing,  as  she  had 


414  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

lived,  looking  like  a  brave  little  bird  bearing  up  through  a  bad 
winter  but  could  not  understand  how  God  could  ever  have 
thought  of  anything  as  cruel  as  snow.  "And  quite  right  too," 
she  said  to  herself.  "If  there  were  ghosts  we  would  spend  all 
our  time  gaping  for  a  sight  of  the  dead,  and  we'd  not  do  our 
duty  by  the  living.  But  surely  there'd  be  no  harm  just  for  once, 
when  I'm  so  put  about  with  this  strange  house,  in  letting  me 
see  in  the  glass  just  the  outline  of  her  wee  head  on  her  wee 
shoulders.  .  .  ."  But  there  was  nothing.  She  sobbed  and 
caught  at  Richard's  .hands,  and  was  instantly  reassured.  For 
the  hand  is  truer  to  the  soul  than  the  face:  it  has  no  moods, 
it  borrows  no  expressions,  and  she  read  the  Richard  that  she 
knew  and  loved  in  these  long  fingers,  stained  by  his  skeely 
trade  and  scored  with  cuts  commemorative  of  adventure  and 
bronzed  with  golden  weather,  and  the  broad  knuckles  that  were 
hollowed  between  the  bones  as  usually  only  frail  hands  are, 
just  as  his  strong  character  was  fissured  by  reserve  and  fas- 
tidiousness and  all  the  delicacies  that  one  does  not  expect  to 
find  in  the  robust.  "You've  got  grand  hands !"  she  cried,  and 
kissed  them.  But  he  wrested  them  away  from  her  and  closed 
them  gently  over  her  wrists,  and  forced  her  backwards  to- 
wards the  hearth,  keeping  his  body  close  to  her  and  shuffling 
his  feet  in  a  kind  of  dance.  She  was  astonished  that  she  should 
not  like  anything  that  he  did  to  her,  and  felt  she  must  be  being 
stupid  and  not  understanding,  and  submitted  to  him  with  nerv- 
ous alacrity  when  he  sat  down  in  the  armchair  and  drew  her 
on  to  his  knee  and  began  to  kiss  her. 

But  she  did  not  like  it  at  all.  For  his  face  wore  the  rapt 
and  vain  expression  of  a  man  who  is  performing  some  compli- 
cated technical  process  which  he  knows  to  be  beyond  the  pow- 
ers of  most  other  people,  and  she  had  a  feeling  that  he  was 
not  thinking  of  her  at  all.  That  was  absurd,  of  course,  for 
he  was  holding  her  in  his  arms,  and  whispering  her  name  over 
and  over  again,  and  pressing  his  mouth  down  on  hers,  and  she 
told  herself  that  she  was  being  tiresome  and  pernickety  like 
the  worst  kind  of  grown-up,  and  urged  herself  to  lend  him  a 
hand  in  this  business  of  love-making.  But  she  could  not  help 
noticing  that  these  were  the  poorest  kisses  he  had  ever  given 
her.  Each  one  was  separate,  and  all  were  impotent  to  con- 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  415 

strain  the  mind  to  thoughts  of  love;  between  them  she  found 
herself  thinking  clearly  of  such  irrelevancies  as  the  bare, 
bright-coloured,  inordinate  order  of  the  room  and  the  excessive 
view  of  tides  and  flatlands  behind  the  polished  window-panes. 
The  kisses  had  their  beauty,  of  course,  for  it  was  Richard  who 
was  giving  them,  but  it  was  the  perishing  and  trivial  beauty 
of  cut  flowers,  whereas  those  that  he  gave  her  commonly  had 
been  strongly  and  enduringly  beautiful  like  trees. 

Always  when  he  took  her  in  his  arms  and  she  lifted  her 
mouth  to  his  it  was  like  going  into  a  wood,  or,  rather,  creating 
a  wood.  For  at  first  there  was  darkness,  since  one  closed  one's 
eyes  when  one  kissed  as  when  one  prayed ;  and  then  it  seemed 
as  if  at  each  kiss  they  were  being  a  tree,  for  their  bodies  were 
pressed  close  together  like  a  tree-trunk,  and  their  trembling, 
gripping  arms  were  like  branches,  and  their  faces  where  love 
lived  on  their  lips  were  like  the  core  of  foliage  where  the  birds 
nest.  She  would  see  springing  up  in  the  darkness  around  her 
the  grove  of  the  trees  that  their  kisses  had  created :  the  silver 
birches  that  were  their  delicate,  unclinging  kisses;  the  sturdy 
elms  that  were  their  kisses  when  they  loved  robustly  and 
thought  of  a  home  together;  the  white-boled  beeches  with 
foliage  of  green  fire  that  they  were  when  they  loved  most 
intensely.  But  to-day  they  did  not  seem  to  be  making  any- 
thing ;  he  was  simply  moving  his  lips  over  her  skin  as  a  doctor 
moves  his  stethoscope  over  his  patient's  chest.  And,  like  the 
doctor,  he  sometimes  hurt  her.  She  hated  it  when  he  kissed 
her  throat,  and  was  glad  when  he  thought  of  something  he 
wanted  to  say  and  stopped. 

"Next  time  I  go  to  London,"  he  said,  "I'm  going  to  buy 
you  a  jade  necklace,  or  malachite  if  I  can  get  it.  The  green 
will  look  so  good  against  your  white,  white  skin." 

"That's  verra  kind  of  you,  but  the  money  may  as  well  lie 
by,"  she  told  him  wisely,  "for  I  couldn't  go  wearing  a  green 
necklace  when  I'm  in  mourning." 

"But  you  won't  be  in  mourning  much  longer." 

"Six  months  in  full  mourning,  six  months  half.  That's  as 
it  should  be  for  a  mother." 

"But  what  nonsense!"  he  exclaimed  irascibly.  "When 
you're  a  young  little  thing  you  ought  to  be  wearing  pretty 


416  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

clothes.  It  doesn't  do  your  mother  any  good,  your  going  about 
in  black." 

"I  know  well  it  doesn't,  but,  remember,  mother  was  old- 
fashioned  Scotch,  and  she  was  most  particular  about  having 
things  just  so.  Specially  on  melancholy  occasions.  I  remem- 
ber she  was  most  pernickety  about  her  blacks  after  my  father's 
death.  And  though  she's  entered  into  eternal  life,  we've  no 
guarantee  that  that  makes  a  body  sensible  all  at  once."  She 
saw  on  his  face  an  expression  which  reminded  her  that  he  had 
been  careful  never  to  acquiesce  when  she  spoke  of  the  possi- 
bility of  a  future  life,  and  she  cried  out :  "You  needn't  look  so 
clever.  I'm  sure  she's  going  on  somewhere,  and  why  you 
should  grudge  it  to  the  poor  woman  I  don't  know.  And  your 
mother  thinks  there's  something  after  death,  too.  She  told  me 
this  morning  in  the  garden  that  she  was  quite  certain  of  it 
when  your  father  died.  She  said  that  all  the  trees  round  the 
house  seemed  to  know  where  he  had  gone." 

"Oh,  she  said  that,  did  she?"  His  arms  released  her.  He 
stared  into  her  face.  "She  said  that,  did  she?"  he  repeated  in 
an  absent,  faintly  malevolent  murmur ;  and  clasped  her  in  his 
arms  again  and  kissed  her  so  cruelly  that  her  lips  began  to 
bleed. 

"Let  me  go,  let  me  go !"  she  cried.  "You're  not  loving  me, 
you're  just  taking  exercise  on  me !" 

He  let  her  go,  but  not,  she  knew  from  the  smile  on  his  face, 
from  any  kindness,  but  rather  that  he  might  better  observe  her 
distress  and  gloat  over  it.  She  moved  away  from  the  heat  of 
the  fire  and  from  that  other  heat  which  had  so  strangely  been 
engendered  by  these  contacts  which  always  before  engendered 
light,  and  went  to  the  window  and  laid  her  forehead  against 
the  cold  glass.  The  day  had  changed  and  lost  its  smile,  for 
the  sky  was  hidden  by  a  dirty  quilt  of  rain-charged  clouds  and 
the  frost  had  seeped  into  the  marshes  and  left  them  dark,  acid 
winter  green,  yet  she  longed  to  walk  out  there  in  that  unsunned 
and  water-logged  country,  opening  her  coat  to  the  cold  wind 
brought  by  the  grey,  invading  tides,  making  little  cold  pools 
where  she  dug  her  heels  into  the  sodden  ground,  getting  rid 
of  her  sense  of  inflammation,  and  being  quite  alone.  That  she 
should  want  not  to  be  with  Richard,  and  that  she  should  not 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  417 

be  perfectly  pleased  with  what  pleased  him,  seemed  to  her 
monstrous  disloyalty,  and  she  turned  and  smiled  at  him.  But 
there  was  really  something  wrong  with  this  room  and  this 
hour,  for  as  she  looked  at  him  she  felt  frightened  and  ashamed, 
as  if  he  were  drunk,  though  she  knew  that  he  was  sober;  and 
indeed  his  face  was  flushed  and  his  eyes  wet  and  winking,  as 
if  smoke  had  blown  in  them.  For  some  reason  that  she  could 
not  understand  he  reminded  her  of  Mr.  Philip. 

She  cried  out  imploringly.  "Take  me  down  to  the  marshes, 
Richard !" 

He  shook  his  head  and  laughed  at  some  private  joke.  She 
felt  desolate,  like  a  child  at  school  whom  other  children  shut 
out  from  their  secrets,  and  drooped  her  head;  and  heard  him 
say  presently:  "We  are  going  out  this  afternoon,  but  not  on 
the  marshes." 

"Where?" 

He  was  overcome  with  silent  laughter  when  she  stamped 
because  he  would  not  answer.  She  ran  over  to  him  and  began 
to  slap  him,  trying  to  make  a  game  of  it  to  cover  her  near  ap- 
proach to  tears.  Then  he  told  her,  not  because  he  was  con- 
cerned with  her  distress,  but  because  her  touch  seemed  to  put 
him  in  a  good  humour.  "We're  going  to  the  registrar,  my 
dear,  to  fix  up  everything  for  our  marriage  in  three  weeks' 
time." 

The  sense  of  what  he  had  said  did  not  reach  her,  because  she 
was  gazing  at  him  to  try  and  find  out  why  he  was  still  re- 
minding her  of  Mr.  Philip.  He  was,  for  one  thing,  wearing  an 
expression  that  would  have  been  more  suitable  to  a  smaller 
man.  Oh,  he  was  terribly  different  to-day !  His  eyes,  whose 
wide  stare  had  always  worked  on  her  like  a  spell,  were  nar- 
row and  glittering,  and  his  lips  looked  full.  She  screamed 
"Oh,  no!  Oh,  no!"  without,  for  a  second,  thinking  against 
what  thing  she  was  crying  out. 

He  laughed  and  pulled  her  down  on  his  knees.  He  was 
laughing  more  than  she  had  ever  known  him  laugh  before. 
"Why,  don't  you  want  to,  you  little  thing?" 

Her  thoughts  wandered  about  the  world  as  she  knew  it, 
looking  for  some  reason.  But  nothing  came  to  her  save  the 
memory  of  the  cold,  wet,  unargumentative  cry  of  the  redshanks 


418  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

that  she  had  heard  on  the  marshes.  She  said  feebly,  as  one 
who  asks  for  water:  "Please,  please  take  me  down  to  the 
sea-wall." 

His  voice  swooped  resolutely  down  with  tenderness.  "But 
why  don't  you  want  to  come  and  see  about  our  marriage  ?  Are 
you  frightened,  dear?" 

Now,  strangely  enough,  he  was  reminding  her  of  Mr.  Mac- 
tavish  James,  as  he  used  to  be  in  those  long  conversations 
when  he  seemed  so  kind,  and  said :  "Nellie,  ma  wee  lassie,  dis 
onything  ail  ye  ?"  and  yet  left  her  with  a  suspicion  that  he  had 
been  asking  her  all  the  time  out  of  curiosity  and  not  because 
he  really  cared  for  her.  She  was  dizzied.  Whoever  was 
speaking  to  her,  it  was  not  Richard.  She  muttered:  "Yes,  a 
little." 

He  pressed  her  closer  to  him,  covering  her  with  this  tender- 
ness as  with  a  hot  cloth  rug,  heavy  and  not  fine.  "Frightened 
of  me,  my  darling?" 

She  pulled  herself  off  his  knee.  "I  don't  know,  I  don't 
know." 

"Why?    Why?" 

She  moved  into  the  middle  of  the  room  and  looked  down  on 
the  sea  and  the  flatlands  with  a  feeling  like  thirst ;  and  turned 
loyally  back  to  Richard,  who  was  standing  silently  on  the 
hearth-rug  watching  her.  The  immobility  of  his  body,  and 
the  indication  in  his  flickering  eyes  and  twitching  mouth  that, 
within  his  quietness,  his  soul  was  dancing  madly  because  of 
some  thought  of  her,  recalled  to  her  the  night  when  Mr.  Philip 
had  stood  by  the  fire  in  the  office  in  Edinburgh.  That  man 
had  hated  her  and  this  one  loved  her,  but  the  difference  in  their" 
aspects  was  not  so  great  as  she  would  have  hoped.  She  could 
bear  it  no  longer,  and  screamed  out :  "Oh !  Oh !  That's  how 
Mr.  Philip  looked!" 

It  took  him  a  minute  to  remember  who  she  meant.  Then 
his  face  shadowed.  "Don't  remind  me  of  him,  for  God's  sake !" 
he  said  through  his  teeth.  "Go  and  put  on  your  things  and 
come  out  with  me  to  the  registrar." 

She  drew  backwards  from  him  and  stood  silent  till  she  could 
master  her  trembling.  He  was  very  like  Mr.  Philip.  Softly 
she  said :  "You  sounded  awful,  as  if  you  were  telling  me." 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  419 

"I  was." 

She  began  to  want  to  cry.  "I'll  not  do  anything  that  I'm 
told." 

He  made  a  clicking  noise  of  disgust  in  his  throat.  It  struck 
her  as  a  mark  of  debasement  that  their  bodies  were  moving 
more  swiftly  than  their  minds,  and  that  each  time  they  spoke 
they  first  gesticulated  or  made  some  wordless  sound.  He  burst 
out,  more  loudly  than  she  had  ever  heard  him  before:  "Go 
and  put  on  your  things." 

"Away  yourself  to  the  registrar,"  she  cried  more  loudly 
still,  "and  tell  him  he'll  never  marry  you  to  me." 

The  ringing  of  her  own  voice  and  his  answering  clamour 
recalled  something  to  her  that  was  dyed  with  a  sunset  light 
and  yet  was  horrible.  She  drew  her  hands  across  her  face 
and  tried  to  remember  what  it  was ;  and  found  herself  walking 
in  memory  along  a  street  in  Edinburgh  towards  a  sunset  which 
patterned  the  west  with  sweeping  lines  of  little  golden  feathers 
as  if  some  vain  angel,  forbidden  to  peacock  it  in  heaven,  had 
come  to  show  his  wings  to  earth.  On  the  other  side,  turned 
to  the  colour  of  a  Gloire  de  Dijon  rose,  towered  the  height  of 
the  MacEwan  Hall,  that  Byzantine  pile  which  she  always 
thought  had  an  air  as  if  it  were  remembering  beautiful  music 
that  had  been  played  within  it  at  so  many  concerts;  and  at 
its  base  staggered  a  quarrelling  man  and  woman.  The  woman 
was  not  young  and  wore  a  man's  cloth  cap  and  a  full,  long, 
filthy  skirt.  They  were  moving  sideways  along  the  empty 
pavement  about  a  yard  apart,  facing  one  another,  shouting 
and  making  threatening  gestures  across  the  gap.  At  last 
they  stopped,  put  their  drink-ulcerated  faces  close  together, 
and  vomited  coarse  cries  at  one  another;  and  she  had  looked 
up  at  the  pale  golden  stone  that  was  remembering  music,  and 
at  the  bright  golden  sky  that  was  promising  that  there  was 
more  than  terrestrial  music,  as  one  might  look  at  well-bred 
friends  after  some  boor  had  stained  some  pleasant  occasion 
with  his  ill  manners.  Then  she  had  been  sixteen.  Now  she 
was  seventeen,  and  she  and  a  man  were  shouting  across  a 
space.  Could  it  be  that  vileness  was  not  a  state  which  one 
could  choose  or  refuse  to  enter,  but  a  phase  through  which, 
being  human,  one  must  pass?  If  that  were  so,  life  was  too 


420  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

horrible.  She  cried  out  through  his  vehemence :  "No,  I'm  not 
going  to  marry  you/' 

"Don't  be  stupid.  You're  being  exactly  like  all  other  women, 
silly  and  capricious.  Go  and  put  your  things  on." 

"I  will  not.    I'm  going  away." 

"Don't  talk  nonsense!    Where  are  you  going?" 

"Back  to  Edinburgh."  She  made  a  hard  line  of  her  trem- 
bling mouth.  "My  mind's  made  up." 

He  made  a  sound  that  expressed  pure  exasperation  un- 
touched with  tenderness,  and  his  eyes  darted  about  her  face 
in  avaricious  appraisement  of  this  property  that  was  trying  to 
detach  itself  from  him  with  a  display  of  free  will  that  might 
not  be  tolerated  in  property.  She  could  see  him  resolving  to 
take  it  lightly,  and  thought  to  herself :  "Maybe  it's  just  as  well 
that  it's  to  be  broken  off,  for  I  doubt  I'm  too  clever  for  mar- 
riage. I  would  read  him  like  a  book  and,  considering  what's 
in  him" — a  convulsion  of  rage  shook  her — "he'd  be  annoyed 
at  that." 

He  had  been  saying  with  deliberate  flippancy:  "Oh,  you 
silly  little  Ellen,"  but  at  that  convulsion  a  change  came  over 
him.  Delight  transfigured  him.  He  jerked  his  head  back  as 
she  had  done,  as  if  he  would  like  to  continue  the  violent  rhythm 
of  her  movement  through  his  own  body,  and  blood  and  laughter 
rushed  back  to  his  face.  Taking  a  step  towards  her,  he  called 
softly:  "Oh,  my  Ellen,  don't  let  us  quarrel!  Come  here." 

But  she  remembered  then  how  that  scene  at  the  base  of  the 
golden  stone  had  ended.  The  pair  had  swung  apart  and  had 
staggered  their  several  ways,  shrieking  over  their  shoulders; 
and  had  suddenly  pivoted  round  and  stood  looking  at  each 
other  in  silence.  Then  they  had  run  together  and  joined  in  a 
rocking  embrace,  a  rubbing  of  their  bodies,  and  had  put  their 
mouths  to  each  other's  faces  so  munchingly  that  it  had  looked 
as  if  they  must  turn  aside  some  time  and  spit  out  the  cores 
of  their  kisses.  She  would  have  no  such  reconciliation.  "I 
won't !  I  tell  you  I  hate  you !"  she  cried,  and  escaped  his  arm. 

Rage  came  into  his  face  without  displacing  his  intention  to 
make  love  to  her.  That  was  against  nature,  unless  nature  was 
utterly  perverse!  She  could  not  bear  it.  She  struck  him 
across  the  mouth  and  ran  out  of  the  room. 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  421 

There  was  a  moment  of  confusion  on  the  landing  when  she 
could  not  tell  which  of  the  white  doors  on  the  right  and  left 
led  into  her  bedroom.  The  first  one  she  opened  showed  her  a 
table  piled  with  heavy  books ;  a  vast  wardrobe  with  glass  doors 
showing  a  line  of  dresses  coloured  like  autumn  and  of  fabrics 
so  exquisite  that  they  might  be  imagined  sentient;  under  a 
shelf  beneath  it  a  long  straight  line,  regular  as  the  border 
plants  in  a  parterre,  of  glossy  wooden  shoe-trees  rising  out 
of  rather  large  shoes  made  from  many  kinds  of  leather  and 
velvets  and  satins;  and  in  the  carpets  and  the  hangings  a  pro- 
found and  vibrant  blue.  Accusingly  she  exclaimed  into  the 
emptiness,  "Marion!"  and  darted  into  her  own  room  just  as 
Richard  burst  out  into  the  passage.  She  flung  herself  on  the 
bed  and  lay  quite  still  while  he  knocked  on  the  door.  Twice 
he  called  her  name.  Nothing  in  her  desired  to  answer.  That 
was  both  relief  and  the  loss  of  all.  Three  times  again  he 
knocked,  and  there  penetrated  through  the  panels  one  of  those 
wordless  noises  that  had  been  disgusting  her  all  the  afternoon. 
After  a  moment's  silence  she  heard  him  go  downstairs.  She 
leaped  up  and  dragged  her  trunk  from  a  corner  into  the  middle 
of  the  room,  but  instead  of  beginning  to  pack  she  fell  on  her 
knees  and  wept  on  to  the  comfortingly  cool  and  smooth  black 
surface. 

"I  did  so  mean  to  be  happy  when  I  got  among  the  English," 
she  sobbed.  "I  thought  England  was  a  light-minded,  cheer- 
ful kind  of  place.  But  I'll  just  go  back  to  Edinburgh."  She 
jumped  up  and  went  to  the  wardrobe  and  looked  at  her  dresses 
hanging  there,  and  cried:  "It'll  waste  them  terribly  if  I  pack 
them  without  tissue  paper,  and  I  can't  ring  with  my  face  in 
this  pickle."  There  was  not  even  a  newspaper  by  to  stuff 
into  her  shoes.  Suddenly  she  wanted  her  mother,  who  had 
always  packed  and  found  things  for  her  and  who  had  been  so 
very  female,  so  completely  guiltless  of  this  excess  of  blood 
that  was  maleness.  It  would  be  dreadful  to  go  back  to  Edin- 
burgh and  find  no  mother;  and  it  would  be  dreadful  to  leave 
Richard.  The  light  of  reason  showed  that  as  a  necessary  and 
noble  journey  towards  economic  and  spiritual  independence 
it  somehow  proved  her,  she  felt,  worthy  of  having  a  vote. 
But  her  flesh,  which  she  curiously  felt  to  be  more  in  touch 


422  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

with  her  soul  than  was  her  mind,  was  appalled  by  her  inten- 
tion. It  would  be  an  unnatural  flight.  What  had  been  between 
Richard  and  herself  had  mingled  them  in  some  real  way,  so 
that  if  she  went  back  and  lived  without  him  she  would  be 
crippled,  and  that,  too,  in  a  real  way:  so  real  that  she  would 
suffer  pain  from  it  every  day  until  she  died,  and  that  children 
would  notice  it  and  laugh  at  it  when  she  got  to  be  old  and 
walked  rusty  and  unmarried  about  the  town. 

Yet  she  could  not  stay  here  now  when  she  had  seen  Rich- 
ard red  and  glazed  and  like  those  wranglers  in  the  street,  and 
not  pale  and  fine-grained  and  more  splendid  and  deliberate 
than  kings.  She  could  not  tell  what  her  life  might  come  to  if 
she  trusted  it  into  the  sweaty  hands  of  this  man  whom,  as  it 
turned  out,  she  did  not  know.  Which  of  these  horrid  paths 
to  disappointment  must  she  tread  ?  In  her  brooding  she  stared 
at  her  face  in  the  glass  which  Marion  had  bought  for  her  and 
noted  how  inappropriate  the  sad  image  was  to  the  gay  green 
and  gold  wood  that  framed  it.  It  struck  her  how  typical  it 
was  of  Marion  that  the  gaiety  of  a  gift  from  her  should,  a 
day  after  the  giving,  become  a  wounding  irony,  and  she  was 
overwhelmed  by  a  double  hatred  of  this  home  and  what  had 
just  happened  to  her  in  it. 

She  flung  herself  again  on  the  bed  and  tried  to  lose  herself 
in  weeping,  but  had  to  see  before  her  mind's  eye  the  gorgeous 
seaworthy  galleon  that  her  love  had  been  till  this  last  hour. 
It  seemed  impossible  that  a  vessel  that  had  so  proudly  left 
the  harbour  could  already  have  foundered.  Hope  freshened 
her  whole  body,  till  she  remembered  how  the  galleon  of  her 
mother's  hopes  had  been  wrecked  and  had  sunk  in  as  many 
fathoms  as  the  full  depth  of  misfortune.  Certainly  there  were 
those  who  died  God's  creditors,  and  she  had  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose she  was  not  one  of  them. 

She  was  lying  with  her  face  to  the  window,  and  it  occurred 
to  her  that  it  was  the  plethora  of  light  let  in  by  that  prodigious 
square'  of  glass  which  was  making  her  think  and  think  and 
think.  That  the  device  of  a  dead  Yaverland's  spite  against 
his  contemporaries  should  work  on  the  victim  of  a  living  Yav- 
erland  gave  her  a  shuddering  sense  of  the  power  of  this  fam- 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  423 

ily.  She  rolled  over  and  covered  her  head  with  the  quilt  and 
wept  and  wept,  until  she  fell  asleep. 

It  was  the  slow  turning  of  the  doorhandle  that  woke  her. 
Instantly  she  remembered  the  huge  extent  to  which  life  had 
gone  wrong  during  the  past  few  hours,  and  rolled  back  to  face 
the  window,  which  was  now  admitting  a  light  grown  grave 
with  the  lateness  of  the  afternoon.  It  might  be  that  it  was 
Richard  who  was  coming  into  her  room  to  say  that  he  did  not 
want  to  marry  her  either ;  or  Marion,  who  would  be  quiet  and 
kind,  and  yet  terrifying  as  if  she  carried  a  naked  sword;  or 
one  of  those  superior-looking  maids  to  tell  her  that  tea  was 
ready.  She  lay  and  waited.  Her  heart  opened  and  closed  be- 
cause these  were  Richard's  steps  that  were  crossing  the  room, 
and  they  were  slow.  They  were  more — they  were  stjy.  And 
when  they  paused  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  his  deep  sigh  was  the 
very  voice  of  penitence.  She  shot  up  out  of  her  pretence  of 
sleep  and  sat  staring  at  him.  Tears  gushed  out  of  her  eyes, 
yet  her  singing  heart  knew  there  was  nothing  more  irrelevant 
to  life  than  tears.  For  he  was  pale  again  and  fine-grained, 
and  though  he  stood  vast  above  her  he  was  pitiful  as  a  child. 
She  stretched  out  her  arms  and  cried:  "Oh,  you  poor  thing! 
Come  away!  Come  close  to  me!" 

But  he  did  not.  He  came  slowly  round  to  the  side  of  the 
bed  and  knelt  down,  and  began  to  pick  at  the  hem  of  the  coun- 
terpane, turning  his  face  from  her.  She  was  aware  that  she 
was  witnessing  the  masculine  equivalent  of  weeping,  and  let 
him  be,  keeping  up  a  little  stream  of  tender  words  and 
sometimes  brushing  his  tense,  unhappy  hands  with  faint 
kisses. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  muttered  painfully  at  last.  "I  was  a 
brute — oh,  such  a  brute.  Do,  do  forgive  me." 

"Yes,  yes,"  she  soothed.  "Never  heed.  I  knew  you  didn't 
mean  it." 

"Oh,  I  was  foul,"  he  groaned,  and  turned  his  head  away 
again. 

"But  don't  grieve  so  over  it,  darling;  it's  over  now,"  she 
said  softly,  and  took  his  face  between  her  hands  and  kissed  it. 
Its  bronze  beauty  and  the  memory  that  she  had  struck  it  pierced 


424  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

her,  and  she  cried,  "Oh,  my  love,  say  I  didn't  hurt  you  when 
I  hit  you!" 

He  broke  into  anguished  laughter.  "No,  you  wee  little 
thing!"  He  strained  her  to  him  and  faltered  vehemently: 
"You  generous  dear !  When  I've  insulted  and  bullied  you  and 
shouted  at  you,  you  ask  me  if  you've  hurt  me!  I  wish  you 
had.  It  would  have  given  me  some  of  the  punishment  I  de- 
serve. Oh,  keep  me,  you  wonderful,  strong,  forgiving  dear ! 
Keep  me  from  being  a  hound,  keep  me  from  forgetting — what- 
ever it  is  we've  found  out.  You've  seen  what  I'm  like  when 
I've  forgotten  it.  Oh,  love  me !  Love  me !" 

"I  will,  I  will !" 

They  clung  together  and  spent  themselves  in  reconciling 
kisses. 

"It  was  my  fault,  too,"  she  whispered.  "I  was  awful  hard 
on  you.  And  maybe  I  took  you  up  too  quick." 

"No,  it  was  all  my  fault,"  he  answered  softly.  "I  was 
worried  and  I  lost  my  head." 

"Worried?  What  are  you  worried  about,  my  darling?  You 
never  told  me  that." 

"Oh,  there's  nothing  to  tell,  really.  It's  not  a  definite  worry. 
It's  to  do" — his  dark  eyes  left  her  and  travelled  among  the 
gathering  shadows  of  the  room — "with  my  mother." 

If  he  had  kissed  her  now  he  would  not  have  found  her  lips 
so  soft.  "Your  mother?"  she  repeated. 

"Yes,"  he  said  petulantly.  It  struck  her  that  there  was 
something  infantile  about  his  tone,  a  shade  of  resentment  much 
as  a  child  might  feel  against  its  nurse.  "She's  been  the  centre 
of  my  whole  life.  And  now  ...  I  don't  know  whether  she 
cares  for  me  at  all.  I  don't  believe  she  ever  cared  for  any- 
body but  my  father.  It's  puzzling." 

His  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  shadows.  He  had  quite  forgotten 
her.  She  leant  back  on  the  pillows,  closing  her  eyes  to  try 
and  master  a  feeling  of  faintness,  and  stretched  out  her  hand 
towards  his  lips. 

He  dropped  a  kiss  on  it  and  went  on:  "So,  you  see,  I  fell 
back  on  you  for  consolation,  and  somehow  at  that  moment  love 
went  out  of  me.  It's  funny  the  change  it  makes  in  everything. 
I  became — so  conventional.  When  you  ran  in  here  and 
slammed  the  door  on  me,  I  didn't  follow  you  because  I  was 


CHAPTER  vin  THE  JUDGE  425 

conscious  that  I  oughtn't  to  come  into  your  room.  Afterwards, 
when  suddenly  I  loved  you  again  and  I  wanted  to  come  and 
be  forgiven  by  you,  I  didn't  care  a  damn  for  any  rule."  Their 
lips  met  again.  She  had  to  dissemble  a  faint  surprise  that  at 
this  moment  he  should  think  about  anything  so  trivial  as  the 
rule  that  a  man  should  not  come  into  a  woman's  bedroom. 
"Ellen,  it  was  beastly.  Really,  I  don't  get  any  more  fun  out 
of  it  than  you  did.  I  lost  my  soul.  I  didn't  feel  anything  for 
you  that  I've  ever  felt.  I  simply  felt  a  sort  of  generalised 
emotion  .  .  .  that  any  man  might  have  felt  for  any  woman.  .  .  . 
It  wasn't  us.  .  .  ."  The  corners  of  his  mouth  were  drawn 
down  by  self -disgust.  "Perhaps  I  am  like  my  father,"  he 
said  loathingly.  "He  was  a  vile  man."  Again  he  forgot  her, 
and  again  she  laid  her  hand  on  his  lips.  When  his  thoughts 
came  back  to  her  he  looked  happier,  though  he  had  to  think  of 
her  penitently.  "I  was  a  beast,"  he  went  on,  "the  coldest, 
cruellest  beast.  Do  you  know  why  I  raged  at  you  when  you 
mentioned  that  little  snipe  you  call  Mr.  Philip?  I  knew  it 
was  the  roughest  luck  on  you  to  have  gone  through  that  time 
with  him.  But  I  wasn't  sorry  for  you.  I  was  jealous.  I  felt 
you  might  have  protected  yourself  from  being  looked  at  by 
any  other  man  in  the  world  except  me,  though  I  knew  perfectly 
you  had  to  earn  your  living,  and  I  ought  to  make  it  my  business 
to  see  that  you're  specially  happy  to  make  up  for  those  months 
you  spent  up  in  that  office  with  those  lustful  old  swine." 

She  checked  him.  He  was  speaking  out  of  that  special 
knowledge  which  she  had  not  got  and  for  lack  of  which  she  felt 
inferior  and  hoodwinked,  and  what  he  said  to  her  suggested  to 
her  that  a  part  of  her  life  which  she  had  thought  she  had  per- 
fectly understood  was  a  mystery  from  which  she  was  debarred 
by  ignorance.  "What  do  you  mean?"  she  cried  deridingly,  as 
if  there  were  no  such  knowledge.  "Why  do  you  call  them 
lustful?" 

In  his  excitement  he  spoke  on.  "Of  course  they  both  wanted 
you.  I  could  see  that  little  snipe  Philip  did.  And  everything 
you  told  me  about  them  proves  it.  And  the  old  man  liked  to 
think  how  he  would  have  wanted  you  if  he'd  been  young." 

Ellen  repeated  wistfully,  "They  wanted  me."  She  did  not 
know  what  it  meant,  but  accepted  it. 

A  sudden  hush  fell  on  his  vehemence.     He  turned  away 


426  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

from  her  again,  and  began  to  pick  at  the  hem  of  the  counter- 
pane. "Don't  you  know  what  that  means?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"Oh,  Lord !"  he  said.  "I  wasn't  sure.  How  frightened  you 
must  be." 

In  the  thinnest  thread  of  sound,  she  murmured:  "Some- 
times. A  little." 

He  was  trembling.  "You  poor  thing.  You  poor  little  thing. 
Yet  I  can't  tell  you." 

She  clapped  her  hands  over  her  ears.  "Ah,  no.  I  couldn't 
bear  to  listen  if  you  did."  They  sank  into  a  trembling  silence. 
Her  black  eyes,  fixed  on  the  opposite  wall,  saw  the  shape  of 
mountains  against  the  white  evening  of  a  dark  sky;  the  dark 
red  circle  of  a  peat-stained  pool  lying  under  the  shadow  of 
a  rock;  the  earth  of  a  new-ploughed  field  over  which  seagulls 
ambled  white  in  heavy  air,  under  a  cloud-felted  sky ;  and  other 
sombre  appearances  that  moved  the  heart  strangely,  as  if  it 
discerned  in  them  proofs  that  the  core  of  life  was  darkness. 
There  came  on  her  suddenly  a  memory  of  that  fierce  initiatory 
pain  which  she  had  felt  when  she  first  drank  wine,  when  she 
first  was  kissed  by  Richard.  She  remembered  it  with  a  sin- 
gular lack  of  dismay.  There  ran  through  her  on  the  instant  a 
tingling  sense  of  pride  and  ambition  towards  all  new  experi- 
ence, and  she  leapt  briskly  from  the  bed,  crying  out  in  placid 
annoyance,  as  if  it  were  the  only  care  she  had,  because  her  hair 
had  fallen  down  about  her  shoulders.  They  stood  easily  to- 
gether in  the  light  of  the  great  window,  she  feeling  for  the 
strayed  hairpins  in  her  head,  he  looking  down  on  the  disordered 
glory. 

"But  what's  that  for?"  he  asked,  pointing  at  the  "open  trunk 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor. 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  "I  was  packing  to  go  back  to 
Edinburgh." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear!"  he  said  solemnly.  "I  came  near 
to  imperilling  a  perfect  thing."  He  took  her  face  between  his 
hands  and  was  going  to  kiss  her,  but  she  started  away  from 
him. 

"Oh,  maircy!     What  cold  hands!"  she  exclaimed. 

"Pve  been  out  in  the  shed  working  at  my  motor-bicycle. 


CHAPTER  viii  THE  JUDGE  427 

It  was  freezing.  And  I  made  an  awful  mess  of  it,  too,  because 
I  was  blind  and  shaking  with  rage." 

"You  poor  silly  thing!"  she  cried  lovingly.  "Give  me  yon 
bits  of  ice !"  She  took  both  his  hands  and  pressed  them 
against  her  warm  throat. 

For  a  little  time  they  remained  so,  until  her  trembling  be- 
came too  great  for  him  to  bear,  and  he  whispered:  "This  is 
all  it  is !  This  is  all  it  is !" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  murmured. 

"What  you  fear  ...  is  just  like  this.  You  will  comfort 
my  whole  body  as  you  are  comforting  my  hands.  .  .  ." 

She  drooped,  she  seemed  about  to  fall,  but  joy  was  a  bright 
light  on  her  face,  and  she  answered  loudly,  plangently :  "Then 
I  shall  not  be  afraid!"  They  swayed  together,  and  she  told 
him  in  earnest  ecstasy :  "I  will  marry  you  any  day  you  like." 
When  he  answered,  "No,  no,  I  will  wait,"  she  jerked  at  his 
coat-lapels  like  an  impatient  child,  and  cried:  "But  I  want 
to  be  married  to  you !"  Then  their  lips  met  in  a  long  kiss,  and 
they  travelled  far  into  a  new  sphere  of  love. 

It  amazed  her  when,  in  the  midst  of  this  happiness,  he  broke 
away  from  her.  She  felt  sick  and  shaken,  as  if  she  had  been 
sitting  in  an  express  train  and  the  driver  had  suddenly  put  on 
the  brakes,  and  it  angered  her  that  he  once  more  made  one  of 
those  wordless  sounds  that  she  detested.  But  her  anger  died 
when  she  saw  that  he  was  staring  over  her  shoulder  out  of  the 
window  at  some  sight  which  had  made  his  face  white  and 
pointed  with  that  grave  alertness  which  is  the  brave  man's 
form  of  fear.  She  swung  round  to  see  what  it  was. 

A  man  and  a  woman  were  standing  in  the  farmyard  looking 
up  at  them.  Their  attitude  of  surprise  and  absorbed  interest 
made  it  evident  that  the  width  and  depth  of  the  window  had 
enabled  them  to  see  clearly  what  was  happening  in  the  room; 
and  for  a  moment  Ellen  covered  her  face  with  her  hands.  But 
she  was  forced  to  look  at  them  again  by  a  sense  that  these 
people  were  strange  in  a  way  that  was  at  once  unpleasant  and 
yet  interesting  and  exciting.  They  were  both  clad  in  uniforms 
cut  unskilfully  out  of  poor  cloth,  the  man  in  a  short  coat  with 
brass  buttons,  braided  trousers,  and  a  circular  cap  like  a 
sailor's,  and  the  woman  in  an  old-fashioned  dress  with  a 


428  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

tight-fitting  bodice  and  a  gored  skirt;  and  round  his  cap  and 
round  the  crown  of  her  poke-bonnet  were  ribbons  on  which 
was  printed :  "Hallelujah  Army." 

The  odd  unshapeliness  of  their  ill-built  bodies  in  their  ill- 
fitting  clothes,  the  stained  and  streaky  blue  of  the  badly-dyed 
serge,  and  the  shallow,  vibrating  magenta  of  the  ribbon  made 
it  very  fitting  that  they  should  stand  in  the  foreground  of  the 
mean  winter  day  which  had  coloured  the  farmyard  and  its 
buildings  sour,  soiled  tones  of  grey.  Their  perfect  harmony 
with  their  surroundings,  even  though  it  was  only  in  disagree- 
ableness  that  they  matched  them,  gave  Ellen  a  kind  of  pleas- 
ure. She  felt  clever  because  she  had  detected  it,  and  she  stared 
down  into  their  faces,  partly  because  she  was  annoyed  by  their 
steady  inspection  and  wanted  to  stare  them  out,  and  partly 
because  she  wanted  to  discover  what  these  people,  who  were 
behaving  so  oddly,  were  like  in  themselves.  There  was  noth- 
ing very  unusual  about  the  woman,  save  that  she  united  several 
qualities  that  one  would  not  have  thought  could  be  found  to- 
gether. She  was  young,  certainly  still  in  her  middle  twenties, 
yet  worn;  florid  yet  haggard;  exuberant  and  upstanding  of 
body,  yet  bowed  at  the  shoulders  as  if  she  were  fragile.  But 
the  man  was  odd  enough.  He  was  pale  and  had  a  very  long 
neck,  and  wore  an  expression  of  extreme  foolishness.  From 
the  frown  with  which  he  was  accompanying  his  gaping  stare 
it  was  evident  that  his  mind  was  so  vague  and  wandering  that 
he  found  it  difficult  to  concentrate  it;  she  was  reminded  of  an 
inexpert  person  she  had  once  seen  trying  to  put  a  white  rabbit 
into  a  bag.  She  looked  again  at  the  girl,  with  that  contempt 
she  felt,  now  that  she  had  Richard,  for  all  women  who  let 
themselves  mate  with  unworthy  men,  and  found  that  her  dark 
eyes  were  fixed  sullenly,  almost  hungrily,  on  Richard.  She 
laid  her  hand  on  Richard's  arm  and  cried:  "If  it's  not  impu- 
dence, it's  the  next  thing  to  it,  staring  like  that  into  a  pairson's 
room!  They're  collecting,  I  suppose.  Away  and  give  them  a 
penny." 

"No,"  said  Richard.  "They  are  not  collecting.  That  is 
Roger." 


CHAPTER  IX 

ELLEN  could  not  understand  why  Richard  whispered  ex- 
plosively as  they  turned  away  from  the  window:  "Pin 
up  your  hair !  Quickly !  We  must  go  down  at  once !"  or  why 
he  hurried  her  downstairs  without  giving  her  time  to  use  her 
brush  and  comb.  When  they  got  down  into  the  old  parlour 
Richard  went  to  the  side  door  that  opened  into  the  farmyard 
and  flung  it  open,  beginning  a  sentence  of  greeting,  but  there 
was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  the  grey  sheds,  the  wood-pile,  and 
the  puddle-pocked  ground.  He  uttered  an  exasperated  ex- 
clamation, and  drew  it  to,  saying  to  Ellen:  "Open  the  front 
door!  Please,  dear."  She  did  so,  but  saw  nothing  save  the 
dark  and  narrow  garden  and  the  black  trees  against  the  white 
north  sky.  "What  in  Christ's  name  are  they  doing?"  Richard 
burst  out,  and  flung  open  the  side  door  again.  Both  put  their 
heads  out  over  the  threshold  to  see  if  the  two  visitors  were 
standing  about  anywhere,  and  a  gust  of  wind  that  was  making 
the  trees  beat  their  arms  darted  down  on  the  house  and  turned 
the  draught  between  the  two  open  doors  into  a  hurricane. 
Ellen  squealed  as  her  door  banged  and  struck  her  shoulder 
before  she  had  time  to  steer  clear  of  it.  "Oh,  my  poor  darl- 
ing!" said  Richard,  and  he  was  coming  towards  her,  when 
they  heard  the  glug-glug-glug  of  water  dripping  from  the  table 
to  the  floor,  and  saw  that  the  draught  had  overturned  a  vase 
filled  with  silver  boughs  of  honesty.  He  picked  it  up  and  ut- 
tered another  bark  of  exasperation,  for  it  had  cracked  across 
and  he  had  cut  his  hand  on  the  sharp  edge  of  the  china. 

"Oh,  damn !  oh,  damn !  oh,  damn !"  he  cried,  in  a  voice  that 
rage  made  high-pitched  and  childish,  sucking  his  finger  in  be- 
tween the  words.  "What  a  filthy  mess !"  He  looked  down  on 
the  wet  tablecloth  and  the  two  halves  of  the  vase  lying  in  the 
bedabbled  leaves  with  an  expression  of  distaste  so  far  out  of 
proportion  to  its  occasion  that  Ellen  remembered  uneasily  how 
several  times  that  day  she  had  noticed  in  him  traces  of  a  des- 
perate, nervous  tidiness  like  Marion's.  "If  you  ring  for  one  of 

429 


430  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  mams  she'll  soon  clear  it  up,"  she  said  soothingly,  and 
moved  towards  the  bell.  But  he  took  his  bleeding  finger  away 
from  his  lips  and  waved  it  at  her,  crying:  "No!  no!  I  don't 
want  either  of  the  servants  round  till  I've  found  that  fool  and 
that  woman!  This  is  some  new  folly — probably  I'll  have  to 
get  him  away  before  mother  comes !  Come  on !  Perhaps 
they're  hanging  about  the  garden,  though  God  knows  why!" 
After  making  a  savage  movement  towards  the  broken  vase,  as 
if  he  could  not  bear  to  leave  the  disorder  as  it  was,  and  check- 
ing it  abruptly,  jarringly,  he  rushed  into  the  dining-room,  and 
Ellen  followed  him. 

The  two  were  there,  their  faces  pressed  against  the  window- 
panes.  Behind  them  the  grey  waste  of  stormy  shallow  waters, 
and  the  salt-dimmed  pastures,  and  the  black  range  of  the  Kent- 
ish hills,  hung  with  grape-purple  rainclouds,  made  it  apparent 
how  much  greater  dignity  belongs  to  the  earth  and  sea  than 
to  those  who  people  them.  As  Richard  and  Ellen  halted  at  the 
door  the  faces  receded  from  the  glass.  The  woman  stepped 
backwards  and,  looking  as  if  she  were  being  moved  on  by  a 
policeman,  passed  suddenly  out  of  sight  beyond  the  window's 
edge.  Richard  crossed  the  room  and  opened  the  French  win- 
dow, but  by  the  time  he  had  unlocked  it  the  man  in  uniform, 
who  had  been  beckoning  to  his  companion  with  long  bony 
hands,  had  gone  in  search  of  her.  As  Richard  put  his  head 
round  the  door  to  bid  them  enter,  the  wind,  which  was  now 
rushing  round  the  house,  made  itself  felt  as  a  chill  commo- 
tion, an  icy  anger  of  the  air,  in  which  both  he  and  Ellen  shiv- 
ered. Presently  the  pair  in  uniform  appeared  again,  but  at 
some  distance  across  the  lawn,  and  too  intensely  absorbed  in 
argument  to  pay  any  attention  to  him. 

"Oh,  damn!  oh,  damn!"  sobbed  Richard.  The  wind  was 
blowing  earth-daubed  leaves  off  the  flowerbeds  through  the 
open  door  into  the  prim  room.  He  stepped  into  the  gale  and 
snouted:  "Roger!  Roger!  Come  in!" 

Roger  waved  his  arms,  which  were  too  long  for  the  sleeves 
of  his  coat,  and  from  his  mouthings  it  was  evident  that  he  was 
shouting  back,  but  the  wind  took  it  all.  In  anger  Richard 
stepped  back  into  the  room  and  made  as  if  to  close  the  doors, 
and  at  that  the  two  on  the  lawn  ran  towards  the  house,  with 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  431 

that  look  which  common  people  have  when  they  run  for  a 
train,  as  if  their  feet  were  buckling  up  under  them.  Richard 
held  the  door  wide  again,  but  when  the  couple  reached  the  path 
in  front  of  the  house  they  were  once  more  seized  with  a  doubt 
about  entering  and  came  to  a  standstill. 

"Come  in,"  said  Richard;  "come  in." 

The  man  took  off  his  cap  and  ran  his  hands  through  his 
pale,  long  hair.  "Is  mother  in?"  he  demanded  in  a  thin, 
whistling  voice. 

"Come  in,"  said  Richard;  "come  in." 

The  man  began :  "Well,  if  mother's  not  in,  I  don't  know " 

Richard  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  woman's  face.  "Come  in," 
he  said  softly,  brutally,  loathingly.  Ellen  shivered  to  hear  him 
speak  thus  to  a  woman  and  to  see  a  woman  take  it  thus,  for  at 
once  the  stranger  moved  forward  to  the  window  and  stepped 
into  the  room.  As  she  brushed  by  him  she  cringingly  bowed 
her  shoulders  a  little,  and  looked  up  at  him  as  he  stood  a  head 
and  shoulders  higher  than  herself.  He  looked  back  steadily 
and  made  no  sign  of  seeing  her  save  by  a  slight  compression 
of  the  lips,  until  she  passed  on  with  dragging  feet  and  stood 
listlessly  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  It  was  evident  that  they 
completely  understood  one  another,  and  yet  their  understand- 
ing sprung  from  no  recollection  of  any  previous  encounter, 
for  into  the  eyes  of  neither  did  there  come  any  flash  of  recog- 
nition. There  could  be  no  doubt  that  Richard  was  feeling 
nothing  but  contempt  for  this  woman,  and  her  peaked  yet  rich- 
coloured  face  expressed  only  sick  sullenness;  yet  Ellen  felt  a 
rage  like  jealousy. 

Richard  turned  again  to  the  garden,  and  said:  "Come  in." 

"Now  don't  be  high-handed,  old  man,"  expostulated  the 
stranger.  But  then  he  seemed  to  remember  something,  and 
stretched  out  both  his  arms,  held  them  rigid,  and  opened  his 
mouth  wide  as  if  to  speak  very  loudly.  But  no  sound  came, 
and  his  arms  dropped,  and  his  long  bony  hands  pawed  the  air. 
Then  suddenly  his  arms  shot  out  again,  and  he  exclaimed  very 
quickly  in  a  high,  strained  voice :  "Pride  has  always  been  your 
besetting  sin,  Richard.  You  aren't  a  bad  chap  in  any  way 
that  I  know  of.  But  you're  proud.  And  it  doesn't  become 
any  of  us  to  be  proud" — his  spirit  was  shaking  the  words  out 


432  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  his  faltering  flesh — "for  we're  all  miserable  sinners.  You 
needn't  order  me" — he  spoke  more  glibly  now,  the  flesh  and 
the  spirit  seemed  in  complete  agreement — "to  come  out  of  the 
garden  like  that.  I  wish  Poppy  hadn't  gone  in."  He  caught 
his  breath  with  something  like  a  sob;  but  the  woman  in  uni- 
form made  no  movement,  and  turned  her  eyes  to  Richard's 
face  as  if  it  were  he  that  must  give  the  order.  "I've  got  a 
reason  for  staying  out  here.  I  know  mother's  not  got  Jesus. 
If  she's  ashamed  of  me  now  that  I'm  one  of  Jesus'  soldiers, 
I  won't  come  in.  I'll  go  and  wrestle  on  my  knees  for  her  soul, 
but  I  won't  hurt  her  by  coming  in.  So  here  I  stay  till  she  tells 
me  to  come  in." 

"But  she's  out,"  said  Richard. 

The  man  in  uniform  was  discomfited.  The  light  went  out 
of  his  face  and  his  mouth  remained  open.  He  shifted  his 
weight  from  one  foot  to  the  other  and  muttered:  "Ooh-er, 
is  she?" 

"Yes,"  said  Richard  pleasantly.  "She's  gone  over  to 
Friar's  End,  but  she'll  be  back  any  time  now.  I  wish  you'd 
come  in.  I  haven't  seen  you  for  years,  and  I'd  like  to  swap 
yarns  with  you  about  what  we've  been  doing  all  the  time." 

"You'd  have  the  most  to  tell,"  answered  the  other  wistfully. 
"You've  been  here,  there,  and  everywhere  in  foreign  parts. 
And  I  haven't  been  doing  nothing  at  all.  Except — "  he  added, 
brightening  up,  "being  saved." 

"That's  your  own  fault,"  Richard  told  him.  "I've  often 
wondered  why  you  didn't  try  your  luck  abroad.  You'd  have 
been  sure  to  hold  your  own.  Well,  anyway,  come  in  and  have 
some  tea.  I  don't  know  what  mother  would  say  to  me  if  she 
came  in  and  found  I'd  let  you  stay  out  in  the  cold.  She'd  be 
awfully  upset." 

"Do  you  think  she  would?"  the  man  in  uniform  asked,  and 
seemed  to  ponder.  He  looked  up  at  the  grey  sky  and  shivered. 
'  'Tis  getting  coldish.  And  the  cloth  this  uniform  is  made 
from  isn't  the  sort  that  keeps  out  cold  weather.  God  knows  I 
don't  want  to  grumble  at  the  uniform  I  wear  for  Jesus'  sake, 
but  me  having  been  in  the  drapery,  I  can't  help  noticing  when 
a  thing  is  cheap."  He  stared  down  at  his  toes  for  a  time, 
lifting  alternately  his  heels  and  pressing  them  down  into  the 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  433 

wet  gravel ;  then  raised  his  head  and  said  nonchalantly :  "Well, 
old  man,  I  think  I  will  come  in  after  all."  But  he  halted  yet 
again  when  he  got  one  foot  over  the  threshold.  "Mind  you, 
I'm  not  coming  in  just  because  it's  cold,"  he  began,  but 
Richard,  exclaimed,  "Yes,  yes!  Of  course  I  know  you're 
not!"  and  gripped  him  by  the  arm  and  pulled  him  into  the 
room.  He  did  not  seem  to  resent  the  rough  treatment  at  all, 
and  went  over  at  once  to  the  woman  in  uniform,  and,  looking 
happily  about  him,  cried :  "Isn't  this  a  lovely  home  ?  I  always 
say  there's  nobody  got  such  a  nice  home  as  my  mother." 

His  voice  whistled ;  and  Ellen  in  her  mind's  eye  saw  a  vision 
of  some  clumsy,  half-bestial  creature  wandering  in  primeval 
swamps,  feeling  joy  and  yet  knowing  no  joyful  word  or  song, 
and  so  plucking  a  reed  and  breathing  down  it,  and  in  his  igno- 
rance being  pleased  at  the  poor  noise.  She  felt  pity  and  loath- 
ing, and  looked  across  the  room  at  Richard,  meaning  to  tell 
him  by  a  smile  that  she  would  help  him  to  be  kind  to  Roger. 
But  Richard  was  still  occupying  himself  with  the  window, 
examining  with  an  air  of  irascibility  a  stain  of  blood  which  his 
cut  finger  had  left  on  the  white  paint  near  the  lock.  His  eyes 
travelled  from  it  to  the  muddy  footprints  of  the  two  who  had 
come  in  from  the  garden  and  to  the  spatter  of  earth-daubed 
leaves  on  the  polished  floor,  and  his  mouth  drew  down  at  the 
corners  in  a  grimace  of  passion  that  made  Ellen  long  to  run 
to  him  and  kiss  him  and  bid  him  not  give  way  to  the  madness 
of  order  so  prevalent  in  this  house.  But  he  did  not  even  look 
at  her,  so  she  could  do  nothing  for  him. 

He  went  forward  to  Roger,  determinedly  sweetening  his 
face,  and  shook  his  hand  heartily.  "It's  good  that  you  should 
have  turned  up  just  at  this  moment,  for  I'm  going  to  be  mar- 
ried before  long  to  Miss  Melville,  whom  I  met  in  Scotland 
when  I  was  working  at  Aberfay.  Ellen,  this  is  my  brother, 
Roger." 

Roger  took  Ellen's  hand  and  then  seemed  to  remember  some- 
thing. After  exchanging  a  portentous  glance  with  the  woman 
in  uniform,  he  looked  steadfastly  into  her  face  and  said  som- 
brely: "I  hope  all's  well  with  you,  sister!  I  hope  all's  well 
with  you!" 

"Pairfectly,"   answered   Ellen;   and   after  a  pause   added, 


434  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

shyly:  "And  I'm  pleased  to  meet  you.  I  hope  anyone  that's 
dear  to  Richard  will  be  friends  with  me." 

He  flung  his  head  backwards  and  cried,  in  that  whistling 
voice:  "Yes,  I'll  be  that!  And  I'm  a  friend  worth  having 
now  I've  got  Jesus!  And  He's  given  me  Poppy  too!  Aha, 
old  man!"  With  a  little  difficulty  he  put  both  his  thumbs 
inside  the  corked  edge  of  his  armholes  and  began  to  stride  up 
and  down,  taking  steps  unnaturally  long  for  thin  legs.  "You 
aren't  the  only  man  who's  thought  of  getting  married !  Great 
minds  think  alike,  they  say !"  With  a  flourish  he  stretched  out 
his  hand,  and  it  was  plain  that  he  thought  he  would  touch  the 
woman  in  uniform,  though  he  was  some  feet  away.  Richard's 
and  Ellen's  eyes  met ;  it  was  repulsive  to  see  a  man  dizzied  by 
so  small  a  draught  of  excitement.  "Richard,  Miss  Melville, 
this  is  Lieutenant  Poppy,  who's  going  to  be  my  wife." 

It  was  difficult  to  know  what  to  do,  for  the  woman  in  uni- 
form, although  she  made  a  murmuring  noise,  preserved  that 
unillumined  aspect  which  conveyed,  more  fully  than  silence 
could  have  done,  that  her  soul  was  glumly  silent.  But  they 
went  and  greeted  her,  and  looked  into  the  matted  darkness  of 
her  eyes. 

"We're  going  to  be  married  as  soon  as  I've  served  my  year 
of  probation.  That's  a  long  time  ahead,  for  I've  only  been  at 
it  a  fortnight.  I  expect  you'll  be  getting  married  much  sooner. 
Things  always  went  easier  with  you  than  me,"  he  complained. 
"But  it'll  be  a  happy  day  when  it  comes,  and  I  get  the  two 
blessings  at  the  same  time,  becoming  a  full  soldier  of  Jesus 
and  marrying  Poppy.  She's  nearly  a  full  soldier  already.  She 
joined  the  Army  seven  months  ago." 

"Do  you  preach  in  the  streets  ?"  asked  Richard. 

Roger's  eyes  filled  with  water.  Ellen  reflected  that  he  must 
be  curiously  sensitive  for  one  so  dull-witted,  for  the  rage  and 
disgust  behind  the  question  had  hardly  shown  their  heads. 
"Yes,  I  do !"  he  said  pettishly.  "And  if  Jesus  doesn't  object, 
I  don't  see  why  you  should." 

"I  don't  object  at  all,"  Richard  assured  him  amiably.  "I 
only  wondered  what  sort  of  work  you  did.  I  suppose  you 
haven't  come  to  work  at  the  Hallelujah  Colony  here,  have 
you?" 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  435 

"That's  just  what  I've  done!"  answered  Roger  joyfully. 
"I  joined  up  at  Margate  and  I've  laboured  there  for  three 
weeks.  I  didn't  do  so  bad.  Did  I,  Poppy?  Not  for  a  start? 
No  one  could  exactly  shine  at  street  preaching  at  first,  you 
know.  They  will  laugh  so.  But  I  didn't  do  worse  than  other 
people  when  they  begin,  did  I,  Poppy?  However,  they've 
transferred  me  over  here  to  the  Colony,  to  do  clerk  work." 
He  added  with  a  touch  of  defiance:  "And,  of  course,  they'll 
want  me  to  take  services  too,  sometimes.  In  fact  I'm  going 
to  take  a  service  this  evening." 

"How  long  are  you  to  be  here?" 

"Maybe  always.  They  may  feel  I  do  the  best  work  for 
Jesus  here."  He  drew  a  deep,  shuddering  breath,  and  took 
his  cap  off  and  threw  it  on  the  table  with  a  convulsive  gesture. 
"If  mother  doesn't  turn  me  away  because  I've  given  myself 
to  Jesus,"  he  said  with  that  whistling  note,  "I'll  be  able  to  see 
her  every  day." 

"She  won't  turn  you  away." 

There  was  folly,  there  was  innocence  in  Roger's  failure  to 
notice  that  Richard  was  speaking  not  in  reassurance  but  in 
grimness,  as  one  might  speak  who  sees  a  doom,  fire  or  flood 
travelling  down  on  to  the  place  where  he  stood.  "You  ought 
to  know,  old  chap,"  he  murmured  hopefully.  "She's  always 
shown  her  heart  to  you,  like  she  never  has  to  me.  ...  I  don't 
know.  .  .  .  Oh,  I've  prayed.  .  .  ." 

"Well,  you'll  know  for  yourself  in  a  minute,"  said  Richard. 
"I  heard  the  front  door  open  and  close  a  second  ago." 

Ellen  felt  a  thrill  of  pride  because  he  had  such  keen  senses, 
for  the  sound  had  been  so  soft  that  she  had  not  heard  it,  and 
yet  it  had  reached  him  in  the  depth  of  his  horrified  absorption 
of  his  brother's  being.  She  longed  to  smile  at  him  and  tell 
him  how  she  loved  him  for  this  and  all  the  other  things,  but 
again  he  wouldn't  pay  attention  to  her.  Indeed,  he  could  not, 
for,  as  she  saw  from  his  white  mask,  he  was  wholly  given  up 
to  pain  and  apprehension.  Her  heart  was  wrung  for  him,  for 
she  saw  the  case  against  Roger.  He  was  sickening  like  some- 
thing that  has  been  fried  in  insufficient  fat ;  and  that  his  loath- 
someness proceeded  from  no  moral  flaw  made  it  all  the  more 
sinister.  If  there  was  not  vileness  in  his  will  to  account  for 


436  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

the  impression  he  made,  then  it  must  be  kneaded  into  his  gen- 
eral substance,  and  meanness  be  the  meaning  of  his  pallor,  and 
treachery  the  secret  of  the  darkness  of  his  hair.  She  looked 
at  him  accusingly  as  he  stood  beside  the  buxom,  sullen  woman, 
who  in  a  slum  version  of  the  emotion  of  embarrassment  was 
sucking  and  gnawing  one  of  her  fingers,  and  she  found  shining 
in  his  face  the  light  of  love;  true  love  that  keeps  faith  and 
does  service  even  when  it  is  used  despitefully.  Perplexed,  she 
doubted  all  judgment. 

The  doorhandle  turned,  and  Richard  stepped  in  front  of 
Roger.  But  when  Marion  slowly  came  into  the  room  she  did 
not  see  him  or  anyone  else,  because  she  was  looking  down  on 
a  piece  of  broken  china  which  she  held  in  her  hand. 

There  was  stillness  till  Richard  whispered :  "Mother." 

She  lifted  her  dark  eyes  and  said,  with  inordinate  melan- 
choly, "Oh,  Richard,  someone  has  broken  the  Lowestoft  jug 
I  used  for  flowers  in  the  parlour.'* 

He  answered  softly:  "No  one  broke  it.  The  wind  blew  it 
down  when  I  opened  the  door  to  Roger." 

Her  eyes  did  not  move  from  his.  Her  mouth  was  a  round 
hole.  He  put  out  his  hand  to  take  the  piece  of  china  from  her. 
They  both  gazed  down  on  it,  as  if  it  were  a  symbol,  and  ex- 
changed a  long  glance.  She  gave  it  to  him  and,  bracing  her- 
self, looked  around  for  Roger.  When  she  found  him  she 
started,  and  stared  at  the  braid  on  his  coat,  the  brass  buttons, 
and  the  brass  studs  on  his  high  collar.  Then  she  became  aware 
of  the  woman,  and,  with  a  faint,  mild  smile  of  distracted 
courtesy,  took  stock  of  her  uniform.  His  cap,  lying  on  the 
table,  caught  her  eye,  and  she  picked  it  up  and  turned  it  round 
and  round  on  her  hand,  reading  the  black  letters  on  the 
magenta  ribbon. 

"So  you've  joined  the  Hallelujah  Army,  Roger?"  she  said, 
in  that  muffled,  indifferent  tone. 

"Yes,"  he  murmured. 

"Do  you  preach  in  the  streets  ?"    Her  voice  shook. 

"Yes,"  he  whispered. 

She  gave  the  cap  another  turn  on  her  hand.  "Are  you 
happy?"  she  asked,  again  indifferently. 

"Yes,"  he  whispered. 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  437 

She  flung  the  cap  down  on  the  table  and  stretched  out  her 
arms  to  him.  "Oh,  my  boy!"  she  cried.  "Oh,  my  boy,  I  am 
so  glad  you  are  happy  at  last!"  Love  itself  seemed  to  have 
spread  its  strong  wings  in  the  room,  and  the  others  gazed 
astonished  until  they  saw  her  flinch,  as  Roger  crumpled  up  and 
fell  on  her  breast,  and  visibly  force  herself  to  be  all  soft, 
mothering  curves  to  him. 

Ellen  cast  down  her  eyes  and  stared  at  the  flocfr.  Roger's 
sobbing  made  a  queer  noise.  Ahe  .  .  .  ahe  .  .  .  ahe.  .  .  . 
It  had  an  unmechanical  sound,  like  the  sewing-machine  at 
home  before  it  quite  wore  out,  or  Richard's  motor-bicycle 
when  something  had  gone  wrong;  and  this  spectacle  of  a 
mother  giving  heaven  to  her  son  by  forgery  of  an  emotion  was 
an  unmechanical  situation.  It  must  break  down  soon.  She 
looked  across  at  Richard  and  found  him  digging  his  nails  into 
the  palms  of  his  hands,  but  not  so  dejected  as  she  might  have 
feared.  It  struck  her  that  he  was  finding  an  almost  gross  sat- 
isfaction in  the  very  wrongness  of  the  situation  which  was 
making  her  grieve — which  must,  she  realised  with  a  stab  of 
pain,  make  everyone  grieve  who  was  not  themselves  tainted 
with  that  wrongness.  He  would  rather  have  things  as  they 
were,  and  see  his  mother  lacerating  her  soul  by  feigning  an 
emotion  that  should  have  been  natural  to  her,  and  his  half- 
brother  showing  himself  a  dolt  by  believing  her,  than  see  them 
embracing  happily  as  uncursed  mothers  and  their  children  do. 
Uneasily  she  shifted  her  eyes  from  his  absorbed  face  to  the  far 
view  of  the  river  and  the  marshes. 

"Oh,  mother!"  spluttered  Roger,  coming  up  to  the  surface 
of  his  emotion.  "I'm  a  rich  man  now!  I've  got  Jesus,  and 
you,  and  Poppy!  Mother,  this  is  Poppy,  and  I'm  going  to 
marry  her  as  soon  as  I  can." 

The  woman  in  uniform  looked  at  the  window  when  Marion 
turned  to  her,  as  if  she  would  have  liked  to  jump  through  it. 
One  could  imagine  her  alighting  quite  softly  on  the  earth  as  if 
on  pads,  changing  into  some  small  animal  with  a  shrew's 
stringy  snout,  and  running  home  on  short  hindlegs  into  a 
drain.  She  moistened  her  lips  and  mumbled  roughly  and 
abjectly:  "I  didn't  want  to  come." 

Marion  answered  smoothly:  "But  now  that  you  are  here, 


438  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

how  glad  I  am  that  you  have,"  and  took  her  two  hands  and 
patted  them.  Looking  round  benevolently  at  Ellen  and  back 
at  Lieutenant  Poppy,  she  exclaimed:  "I'm  a  lucky  woman  to 
have  two  daughters  given  me  in  one  week."  She  was  behaving 
like  an  old  mother  in  an  advertisement,  like  the  silver-haired 
old  lady  who  leads  the  home  circle  in  its  orgy  of  eating  Mack- 
intosh's toffee  or  who  reads  the  Weekly  Telegraph  in  plaques 
at  railway-itations.  The  rapidity  with  which  she  had  changed 
from  the  brooding  thing  she  generally  was,  with  her  heavy 
eyes  and  her  twitching  hands  perpetually  testifying  that  the 
chords  of  her  life  had  not  been  resolved  and  she  was  on  edge 
to  hear  their  final  music,  and  the  perfection  with  which  she 
had  assumed  this  bland  and  glossy  personality  at  a  moment's 
notice,  struck  Ellen  with  wonder  and  admiration.  She  liked 
the  way  this  family  turned  and  doubled  under  the  attack  of 
fate.  She  was  glad  that  she  was  going  to  become  one  of  them, 
just  as  a  boy  might  feel  proud  on  joining  a  pirate  crew.  She 
went  over  and  stood  beside  Richard  and  slipped  her  arm 
through  his.  Uneasily  she  was  aware  that  now  she,  too,  was 
enjoying  the  situation,  and  would  not  have  had  it  other  than 
it  was.  She  drooped  her  head  against  Richard's  shoulder,  and 
hoped  all  might  be  well  with  all  of  them. 

"You  see,  mother,  since  I  saw  you  I've  had  trouble — I've 
had  trouble "  Roger  was  stammering. 

Marion  turned  from  him  to  Richard.  "Ring  for  tea,"  she 
said,  "and  turn  on  the  lights.  All  the  lights.  Even  the  lights 
we  don't  generally  use." 

Roger  clung  to  her.  "I  don't  want  to  hide  anything  from 
you,  mother,"  he  began,  but  she  cut  him  short.  "Oh,  what 
cold  hands !  Oh,  what  cold  hands !"  she  cried  playfully,  and 
rubbed  them  for  him.  As  the  lights  went  up  one  by  one,  behind 
the  cornice,  in  the  candlesticks  on  the  table,  in  the  alabaster 
vases  on  the  mantelpiece,  they  disclosed  those  hands  as  long 
and  yellowish  and  covered  with  warts.  The  parlourmaid  came 
in  and,  over  her  shoulder,  Marion  said  easily:  "Tea  now, 
Mabel.  There're  five  of  us.  And  we'll  have  it  down  here  at 
the  table." 

She  waved  her  visitors  towards  chairs  and  herself  moved 
over  to  an  armchair  at  the  hearth.  All  her  movements  were 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  439 

easy  and  her  face  wore  a  look  of  blandness  as  she  settled  back 
among  the  cushions,  until  it  became  evident  that  she  was  to 
be  disappointed  in  her  natural  hope  that  Roger  would  see  the 
necessity  of  stopping  his  babble  while  the  servant  was  going 
in  and  out  of  the  room.  It  was  true  that  he  did  not  speak 
when  she  was  actually  present,  but  he  began  again  on  his 
whistling  intimacies  the  minute  she  closed  the  door,  and  when 
she  returned  cut  himself  short  and  relapsed  into  a  breathy 
silence  that  made  it  seem  as  if  he  had  been  talking  of  some- 
thing to  the  discredit  of  them  all.  Ellen  felt  disgust  in  watch- 
ing him,  and  more  of  this  perverse  pleasure  in  this  situation, 
which  she  ought  to  have  whole-heartedly  abhorred,  when  she 
watched  Marion.  She  was  one  of  those  women  who  wear  dis- 
tress like  a  rose  in  their  hair.  Her  eyes,  which  wandered 
between  the  two  undesired  visitors,  were  star-bright  and  aerial- 
soft  ;  under  her  golden,  age-dusked  pallor  her  blood  rose  crim- 
son with  surprise ;  her  face  was  abandoned  so  amazedly  to  her 
peril  that  it  lost  all  its  burden  of  reserve,  and  was  upturned 
and  candid  as  if  she  were  a  girl  receiving  her  first  kiss;  her 
body,  taut  in  case  she  had  to  keep  up  and  restrain  Roger  from 
some  folly  of  attitude  or  blubbering  flight,  recovered  the  ani- 
mation of  youth.  It  was  no  wonder  that  Richard  did  not  look 
at  anybody  but  his  mother. 

"You  see,  mother,  it  was  Poppy  who  brought  me  to  Jesus/* 
Roger  said,  a  second  before  the  door  closed.  "I  ...  I'd  had 
a  bit  of  trouble.  I'd  been  very  foolish.  .  .  .  I'll  tell  you  about 
that  later.  It  isn't  because  I'm  cowardly  and  unrepentant  that 
I  won't  tell  it  now.  I've  told  it  once  on  the  Confession  Bench 
in  front  of  lots  of  people,  so  I'm  not  a  coward.  And  I  don't 
believe,"  he  declared,  casting  a  look  of  dislike  at  Richard  and 
Ellen,  "that  the  Lord  would  want  me  to  tell  anybody  but  you 
about  it."  The  servant  returned,  and  he  fell  silent ;  with  such 
an  effect  that  she  looked  contemptuously  at  her  mistress  as  she 
might  have  if  bailiffs  had  been  put  into  the  house.  When  she 
had  gone  he  began  again:  "It  was  this  way  Poppy  did  it. 
After  my  trouble  I  was  walking  down  Margate  Broad- 
way  " 

The  woman  in  uniform  made  so  emphatic  a  noise  of  impa- 
tience that  they  all  turned  and  looked  at  her.  "There  isn't  a 


440  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

Broadway  in  Margate !"  she  nearly  snarled.  "It's  High  Street, 
you  mean.  The  High  Street.  Broadways  they  call  them  some 
places.  But  not  at  Margate,  not  at  Margate." 

"Neither  it  is,"  said  Roger  adoringly.  "What  a  memory 
you're  got,  Poppy!" 

Marion  rose  from  the  table,  laying  her  hand  on  the  woman's 
braided  shoulders  as  she  passed.  "Let's  come  to  the  table  and 
have  some  tea;  and  take  your  hat  off,  dear.  Yes,  take  it  off. 
That  close  bonnet  can't  be  very  comfortable  when  one's  tired." 

Ellen  stared  like  a  rude  child  as  the  woman  slowly,  with 
shapeless  red  fingers,  untied  her  bonnet-strings  and  revealed 
herself  as  something  at  once  agelessly  primitive  and  most  mod- 
ernly  degenerate.  The  frizzed  thicket  of  coarse  hair  which 
broke  into  a  line  of  tiny,  quite  circular  curls  round  her  low 
forehead  made  Ellen  remember  side-streets  round  Gorgie  and 
Dairy,  which  the  midday  hooters  rilled  with  factory  girls 
horned  under  their  shawls  with  Hinde's  curlers;  yet  made  her 
remember  also  vases  and  friezes  in  museums  where  crimped, 
panoplied  priestesses  dispensed  archaic  rites.  Her  features 
were  so  closely  moulded  to  the  bone,  her  temples  so  pro- 
tuberant, and  her  eyes  sunk  in  such  pits  of  sockets  that  one 
had  to  think  of  a  skull,  a  skull  found  in  hot  sand  among  ruins. 
The  ruins  of  some  lost  Nubian  city,  the  mind  ran  on,  for  the 
fulness  of  her  lips  compared  with  the  thinness  of  her  cheeks 
gave  her  a  negroid  look;  yet  the  smallness  and  poor  design  of 
her  bones  marked  her  as  reared  in  an  English  slum.  But  her 
rich  colour  declared  that  neither  that  upbringing,  nor  any  of 
the  mean  conditions  which  her  bearing  showed  had  pressed 
in  upon  her  since  her  birth,  had  been  able  to  destroy  her  inner 
resource  of  vitality.  The  final  meaning  of  her  was,  perhaps, 
primitive  and  strong.  When  she  had  stood  about  the  room 
there  had  been  a  kind  of  hieratic  dignity  about  her;  she  had 
that  sanctioned  effect  upon  the  eye  which  is  given  by  someone 
adequately  imitating  the  pose  of  some  famous  picture  or  statue. 
There  flashed  before  Ellen's  mind  the  tail  of  some  memory  of 
an  open  place  round  which  women  stood  looking  just  like  this ; 
but  it  was  gone  immediately. 

"Well,"  said  Roger,  "I  was  telling  you  how  I  got  Jesus.  I 
was  going  along  Margate  High  Street,  and  I  saw  a  crowd,  and 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  441 

I  heard  a  band  playing.  I  didn't  take  any  particular  notice  of 
it  and  I  was  going  to  pass  it  by — think  of  it,  mother,  I  was 
going  to  pass  it  by ! — when  the  band  stopped  and  a  most  beau- 
tiful voice  started  singing.  It  was  Poppy.  Oh,  mother,  you 
must  hear  Poppy  sing  some  day.  She  has  such  a  wonderful 
voice.  It's  a  very  rich  contralto.  Before  she  was  saved  she 
sang  on  a  pier.  Well,  I  got  into  the  crowd,  and  presently  I 
got  close  and  I  saw  her."  A  dreadful  coyness  came  on  him, 
and  he  turned  to  Poppy  and,  it  was  plain  to  all  of  them, 
squeezed  her  hand  under  the  table.  She  looked  straight  in 
front  of  her  with  the  dumb  malignity  of  a  hobbled  mule  that 
is  being  teased.  "Well,  I  knew  at  once.  I've  often  envied 
you  and  mother  for  going  to  Spain  and  South  America,  and 
wondered  if  the  ladies  were  really  like  what  you  see  in  pic- 
tures. All  big  and  dark  and  handsome,  but  when  Poppy  came 
along  I  saw  I  didn't  have  to  go  abroad  for  that !  And  you 
know,  mother,  Poppy  is  Spanish — half.  Her  name's  Poppy 
Alicante.  Her  mother  was  English,  but  she  married  a  Spanish 
gentleman,  of  very  good  family  he  was.  In  fact,  he  was  a 
real  don,  wasn't  he,  Poppy  ?  But  he  died  when  she  was  a  baby, 
and  as  he'd  been  tricked  out  of  his  inheritance  by  a  wicked 
uncle,  there  wasn't  much  money  about,  so  Poppy's  mother 
married  again,  to  a  gentleman  connected  with  the  Navy,  who 
lives  just  the  other  side  of  the  river  from  over  here.  Funny, 
isn't  it?  But  it  was  a  very  godless  home,  and  they  behaved 
disgracefully  to  Poppy,  when  a  rich  man  who  saw  her  on  the 
road  when  he  was  riding  along  in  his  motor-car  wanted  to 
marry  her,  and  she  refused  because  she  didn't  love  him.  They 
were  so  cruel  to  her  that  she  had  to  leave  home  and  earn  her 
living,  though  she  never  expected  to.  But  she  didn't  like  mix- 
ing with  rough  people,  so  as  she'd  always  had  Jesus  she  joined 
the  Army.  And  that's  how  we  met." 

After  a  pause  Marion  said,  speaking  fatuously  in  order  to 
avoid  the  appearance  of  irony :  "You're  quite  a  romantic  bride, 
Poppy." 

The  woman  in  uniform  bit  into  her  toast  and  swallowed  it 
unchewed. 

"Well,  I  knew  at  once  I'd  met  the  one  woman,  as  they  say, 
and  I  hung  about  just  to  see  if  I  couldn't  see  more  of  her. 


442  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

And  that's  how  I  got  Jesus.  She  brought  me  to  Him.  Mother, 
mother,"  he  cried,  in  a  sudden  pale,  febrile  passion,  "there's 
few  have  such  a  blessed  beginning  to  their  marriage!  We 
ought  to  be  very  happy,  oughtn't  we?" 

"Yes,  Roger,"  she  answered  him.  "You'll  be  very  happy — 
a  husband  that  any  woman  would  be  proud  of." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  nearly  good  enough  for  Poppy,"  he  said  depre- 
catingly.  He  seemed  used  to  Poppy's  silence,  and,  indeed, 
whenever  her  silent  absence  from  speech  was  most  marked,  he 
bent  towards  her  in  a  tender  attitude  which  showed  a  resolu- 
tion to  regard  it  as  maidenly  bashfulness.  "Well,  to  get  back 
to  my  story.  I  stood  there  peering  through  the  crowd  for 
another  look  at  her,  and  an  officer  began  preaching.  Captain 
Harris  it  was.  I  didn't  take  any  particular  notice  of  him." 
He  jerked  his  whitish  face  about  contemptuously.  "He's  a 
poor  preacher,  isn't  he,  Poppy?  He  never  gets  a  grip  on  the 
crowd,  does  he?  And  they  can't  hear  him  beyond  the  first 
few  rows.  I  don't  think  I  heard  more  than  a  few  sentences 
that  first  evening.  If  I'd  had  been  in  the  Army  as  many  years 
as  he  has,  and  I  couldn't  preach  any  better  than  that,  I'd  find 
some  other  way  of  serving  Jesus.  I  would  really. 

"But  after  that" — he  stopped,  looked  at  some  vision  in  the 
air  before  him  which  filled  his  eyes  with  tears  and  fire,  and 
sighed  deeply — "Captain  Sampson  preached  the  gospel.  It's 
Captain  Sampson  I've  been  working  under  since  I  joined  the 
Army.  Oh,  mother,  mother,  I  wish  you  could  hear  him  preach. 
He  would  give  you  Jesus.  That  first  evening  I  heard  him  I 
saw  Jesus  as  plain  as  I  see  you.  I  saw  Him  then  looking  fierce 
like  He  was  when  He  scourged  the  moneychangers  out  of  the 
temple.  But  when  I'm  alone,  I  see  the  other  Jesus,  the  way 
he  was  most  times."  He  put  his  head  back  and  bleated: 
"  'Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild.'  The  One  that  loves  us  when 
we're  weak  and  when  we  fall,  and  loves  us  all  the  better  for  it. 
Even  you" — he  looked  at  Richard  with  a  faint,  malign  joyful- 
ness — "must  feel  the  want  of  Him  sometimes.  Life  can't  be 
a  path  of  roses  for  any  of  us,  however  strong  and  clever  we 
are.  So  I  say  it's  not  good  preaching  to  go  on  always  about 
fighting  for  Jesus  and  being  a  good  soldier,  and  making  it  seem 
as  if  religion  was  just  another  trouble  we  had  to  face."  His 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  443 

voice  broke  with  petulance.  "It's  a  shame  not  to  show  people 
Gentle  Jesus." 

He  checked  himself.  Remorse  ran  red  under  his  pale  skin. 
"What  am  I  saying?"  he  cried  out.  "Captain  Sampson  is  a 
holy  man!  If  he's  harsh  to  those  that  work  under  him  it's 
right  he  should  be.  God  chasteneth  whom  He  loveth,  and  it's 
the  same  way  with  Captain  Sampson  I  expect.  It's  really  a 
way  of  showing  that  he  cares  about  you  and  is  anxious  about 
you.  And  anyway,  he  did  give  me  Jesus  that  evening.  Oh, 
mother,  it  was  so  wonderful !"  The  words  rushed  out  of  him. 
"He  made  you  feel  all  tingling  like  you  do  when  the  fire  engine 
goes  past.  Oh,  it's  an  evening  to  remember !  And  it  gave  me 
Jesus!  Oh,  mother,  you  don't  know  what  it's  like  to  find 
Jesus!  To  know" — his  voice  whistled  exultantly  over  the 
stricken  tea-table — "that  there's  Somebody  who  really  loves 
you !" 

For  one  second  Marion  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 

Unseeingly  he  piped  on :  "I'm  happy  now.  Always  happy." 
He  broke  into  thin,  causeless  laughter.  "When  I  wake  up  in 
the  middle  of  the  night,  instead  of  feeling  miserable  like  I  used 
to,  and  remembering  things  that  happened  at  Dawlish  when  I 
was  a  kid,  and  wishing  I  hadn't  ever  been  born  as  I  wasn't 
any  good  for  anything,  I  just  think  of  Jesus  and  feel  lovely 
and  warm.  And  I've  got  earthly  happiness  as  well.  I've  got 
Poppy.  Oh,  I'm  a  lucky  man,  lucky  man!  And  I've  got  a 
lifework  instead  of  being  an  odd-come-short.  I'll  always  have 
something  to  do  now.  They've  had  experience  with  all  sorts 
of  men  for  years  and  years,  turning  them  into  soldiers  for 
Jesus.  Surely  they'll  be  able  to  find  some  work  for  me,  even 
if  they  don't  want  me  to  preach.  Look  at  what  I'm  going  to 
do  now.  Even  if  I  don't  do  anything  but  clerk  work,  it's  help- 
ing the  Labour  Colony  along — helping  hundreds  of  poor  souls 
to  earn  a  decent  living  under  Bible  influence  when,  if  they 
weren't,  there  they'd  be,  roaming  about  the  streets  hungry  and 
in  sin.  I'll  be  doing  my  bit,  won't  I,  mother?" 

She  smiled  beneficently  but  speechlessly. 

Ellen  felt  contemptuous.  She  had  read  about  those  Halle- 
lujah Army  Colonies  for  the  unemployed,  and  had  heard  them 
denounced  at  labour  meetings,  and  they  were,  she  knew,  mere 


444  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

palliatives  by  using  which  the  pious  gave  themselves  the 
pleasure  of  feeling  that  they  were  dealing  with  the  immense 
problem  of  poverty  when  they  were  merely  taking  a  few  hun- 
dred men  and  setting  them  to  work  in  uneconomic  conditions. 
The  very  consideration  of  them  brought  back  the  happy  spasm 
in  the  throat,  the  flood  of  fire  through  the  veins,  the  conviction 
that  amidst  the  meadowsweet  of  some  near  field  there  lurked 
a  dragon  whose  slaughter  (which  would  not  be  difficult)  would 
restore  the  earth  its  lost  security ;  and  all  the  hot,  hopeful  mood 
which  filled  her  when  she  heard  talk  of  revolution.  She  hated 
the  weak  man  for  aggravating  the  offence  of  his  unsightliness 
by  allying  himself  with  the  reactionary  powers  that  made  this 
world  as  unsightly  as  himself.  And  it  was  like  him  to  talk 
about  teaching  the  Bible  when  everybody  knew  that  there  were 
lots  of  things  that  weren't  true.  The  spectacle  of  this  mean 
little  intelligence  refusing  to  take  cognisance  of  the  truths  that 
men  like  Darwin  and  Huxley  had  worked  all  their  lives  to  dis- 
cover, and  faced  the  common  hatred  to  proclaim,  seemed  to 
her  cruel  ingratitude  to  the  great  and  wanton  contemning  of 
the  power  of  thought,  which  was  the  only  tool  man  had  been 
given  to  help  him  break  this  prison  of  disordered  society.  She 
leaned  across  the  table  and  demanded  in  a  heckling  tone :  "But 
you  must  know  pairfectly  well  that  these  Labour  Colonies  are 
only  tackling  the  fringe  of  the  problem.  There's  no  way  of 
settling  the  question  of  unemployment  until  the  capitalist  sys- 
tem's overturned." 

He  looked  at  her  with  wide  eyes  and  assumed  an  air  of 
being  engaged  in  desperate  conflict.  It  was  evident  that  his 
egotism  was  transforming  this  conversation  into  a  monstrous 
wrestling  with  Apollyon.  "Ah!  You're  a  Socialist.  They 
only  think  of  giving  people  money.  But  it  isn't  money  people 
need.  Oh,  no.  'What'  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?'  It's  Jesus  they  need. 
Give  them  the  Bible  and  all  their  wants  will  be  satisfied,"  he 
cried  in  a  shrill  peewit  cry. 

"But  the  Bible  isn't  final.  There's  lots  of  things  we  know 
more  about  than  the  people  who  wrote  it.  Look  at  all  yon 
nonsense  they  put  in  about  Adam  and  Eve  because  they  didn't 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  445 

know  about  evolution.  That  alone  shows  it's  absurd  to  rely 
solely  on  the  Bible.  .  .  ." 

She  looked  round  for  signs  of  the  others'  approval.  She 
knew  that  Richard  agreed  with  her,  for  among  his  Christmas 
presents  to  her  had  been  Huxley's  Essays,  and  when  he  had 
talked  to  her  of  science  she  had  seen  that  research  after  that 
truth  was  to  him  a  shining  mystic  way  which  he  would  have 
declared  led  to  God  had  he  not  been  more  reverent  than  Church 
men  are,  and  feared  to  use  that  name  lest  it  were  not  sacred 
enough  for  the  ultimate  sacredness.  But  to  her  amazement  he 
kept  his  eyes  on  the  crumbs  which  he  was  picking  up  from  the 
tablecloth,  and  through  his  parted  lips  there  sounded  the 
faintest  click  of  exasperation.  She  looked  in  wonder  at 
Marion,  and  found  her  eyes  also  downcast  and  her  forefinger 
tapping  on  her  chin  as  if  she  were  seeking  for  some  expedient 
to  stop  this  dangerous  chatter.  Ellen  despised  them  both. 
They  had  been  terribly  exercised  at  the  thought  that  Roger 
was  going  to  preach  in  the  streets,  but  they  did  not  care  at  all 
that  he  was  delivered  over  to  error.  She  looked  at  him  sym- 
pathetically over  the  table,  feeling  that  since  these  horrid  people 
with  whom  she  had  got  entangled  did  not  like  him,  he  might 
be  quite  nice,  and  found  him  exchanging  a  long,  peculiar  glance 
with  Poppy,  which  was  followed  on  both  sides  by  a  slow, 
meaning  nod. 

He  looked  in  front  of  him  again  and  his  round  eyes  vacil- 
lated between  Richard  and  Ellen,  growing  rounder  at  each  roll. 
Presently  he  swallowed  a  lump  in  his  throat  and  addressed 
himself  to  her.  "Ah,  you're  an  unbeliever,"  he  said.  "Well, 
Captain  Sampson  says  there's  always  a  reason  for  it  if  people 
can't  believe."  He  moistened  his  lips  and  panted  the  words 

out  at  her.  "If  you've  been  doing  anything  that's  wrong " 

A  sob  prevented  him.  "Oh,  I  can't  go  and  spoil  this  lovely 
tea,  even  if  I  ought  to  for  Jesus'  sake !"  he  cried.  "We're  all 
so  happy,  I  can't  bear -to  break  it  up  by  telling  you  what  it's 
my  duty  to  do !  Poppy,  doesn't  mother  have  everything  nice  ? 
I've  often  thought  of  this  tea-table  when  I've  been  eating  at 
places  where  they  did  things  roughish.  Look  at  the  flowers. 
Mother  always  has  flowers  on  the  table,  even  when  it's  winter. 


446  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

Jesus  wouldn't  expect  me  to  break  this  up."  His  face  became 
transfused  with  light.  "I  believe  Jesus  loves  everything  that's 
done  nicely,  whether  it's  a  good  deed  or  bread-and-butter  cut 
nice  and  thin.  That's  why,"  he  mourned,  so  wistfully  that  all 
of  them  save  the  impassive  woman  in  uniform  made  a  kind, 
friendly  bending  towards  him,  "I  mind  not  to  be  able  to  do 
anything  really  well.  But  Jesus  loves  me  all  the  same.  He 
loves  me  whatever  I'm  like!"  His  brow  clouded.  "But  be- 
cause He  loves  me  I  owe  Him  a  debt.  I  ought  to  preach  Him 
wherever  I  am,  in  and  out  of  season.  But  I  can't  spoil  this. 
Aren't  we  all  happy,  sitting  here  ?  I'll  tell  you  what.  They've 
asked  me  to  take  the  Saturday  evening  service  to-night  because 
the  Commandant  and  the  two  under  him  are  all  down  with 
influenza.  If  you'll  come  and  hear  me  I'll  tell  you  what  Jesus 
wants  you  to  hear.  Oh,  mother,  Richard,  do,  do  come!" 

"Yes,  Roger  dear,  we'll  come." 

"You  won't  .  .  .  make  fun  of  it?" 

"Oh  no!  Oh  no!"  Her  voice  was  hesitant,  intimate,  girl- 
ishly shy.  "We  haven't  seen  nearly  as  much  of  each  other 
as  a  mother  and  son  ought.  There  are  lots  of  things  about  me 
you  don't  know.  For  all  you  know,  what  you  said  of  Richard 
a  moment  ago  .  .  .  might  be  true  of  me.  .  .  ." 

"What  I  said  about  Richard?  .  .  ." 

"About  times  when  one  feels  life  too  difficult  and  wants 
Someone  to  help  one.  .  .  ." 

She  spoke  seductively,  mysteriously,  as  if  she  were  promis- 
ing him  a  pleasure ;  and  he  answered  in  a  voluptuous  whining : 
"Oh,  mother,  if  I  could  bring  you  to  Jesus !  Oh,  Jesus !  you 
are  giving  me  everything  I  want!"  But  in  the  midst  of  his 
rapture  his  face  changed  and  he  started  to  his  feet,  so  violently 
that  his  chair  nearly  fell  backwards.  "Yes,"  he  cried  reproach- 
fully, "Jesus  gives  me  everything,  and  this  is  how  I  reward 
Him!" 

They  all  stared  at  him,  except  Poppy,  who  was  gloomily 
reading  the  tea-leaves  in  her  cup. 

"I  told  a  lie!"  he  answered  their  common  mute  enquiry. 
"A  silly,  vain  lie.  I  told  you  they'd  asked  me  to  take  the  Satur- 
day evening  service  to-night.  They  didn't.  I  offered  to  take 
it.  Nobody  ever  asks  me  to  preach.  They  say  I  can't.  Mind 


CHAPTER  uc  THE  JUDGE  447 

you,  I  don't  think  they're  right.  I  think  that  if  they  would  let 
me  practise  I  wouldn't  speak  so  badly.  But  that's  not  the 
point.  I  told  a  lie.  I  distinctly  said  they'd  asked  me  to  preach 
because  I  wanted  to  pretend  that  I  was  making  a  success  of 
things  like  Richard  always  does.  Oh,  what  a  thing  to  do  to 
Jesus!" 

"But,  dear,  that  was  only  because  you  were  speaking  in  a 
hurry.  It  wasn't  a  deliberate  lie." 

"Oh,  mother,  you  don't  understand,"  he  fairly  squealed. 
"You  haven't  been  saved,  you  see,  and  you're  still  lax  about 
these  things.  It  does  matter !  It  was  a  lie !  I  ought  to  wrestle 
this  thing  out  on  my  knees.  Mother,  will  it  put  anybody  out 
if  I  go  into  the  parlour  and  pray?" 

Marion  answered  tenderly:  "My  dear,  of  course  you  can," 
but  Poppy  clicked  down  her  cup  into  its  saucer  and  said  in 
a  tone  of  sluggish,  considered  exasperation:  "You  haven't 
time.  We  ought  to  be  at  the  chapel  half  an  hour  before  the 
meeting.  It's  a  quarter  to  six  now." 

"Oh  dear!  oh  dear!  Is  it  as  late  as  that?  I  wanted  to 
write  on  a  piece  of  paper  what  I'm  going  to  say!  Now  I 
won't  have  time!  Oh,  and  I  did  want  to  preach  well!  Oh, 
where's  my  cap?"  He  began  to  stumble  about  the  room. 
Presently  he  caught  his  foot  in  one  of  the  electric  light  cords 
and  set  an  alabaster  lamp  on  the  mantelpiece  rocking  on  its 
pedestal.  Richard  and  Marion  watched  him  and  it  with  that 
set,  horrified  stare  which  the  anticipation  of  disorder  always 
provoked  in  them.  "Tcha !"  exclaimed  Poppy  contemptuously. 
"But  it's  there !  On  the  armchair !"  cried  Ellen  :  she  could  not 
bear  the  look  on  Richard's  and  Marion's  faces.  "Where?" 
asked  Poppy.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had  spoken  directly  to 
Ellen.  "There !  There !  Among  the  cushions,"  she  answered, 
and  rose  and  went  round  the  table  to  pick  it  up  herself. 
Richard  came  and  helped  her. 

Roger  seemed  a  little  annoyed  when  Richard  and  Ellen 
found  the  cap  for  him  among  the  cushions.  Having  to  thank 
them  spoiled,  it  could  be  seen,  some  valedictory  effect  which 
he  had  planned.  He  stood  by  while  they  shook  hands  with 
Poppy,  who  turned  her  head  away  as  if  to  hide  some  scar,  and 
when  she  had  gone  across  to  Marion  tried  to  get  in  his  designed 


448  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

tremendousness.  By  the  working  of  his  face,  which  made 
even  his  ears  move  a  little,  they  knew  they  must  endure  some- 
thing very  characteristic  of  him.  But  into  his  weak  eyes  there 
bubbled  a  spring  of  joyful  tenderness  so  bright,  so  clear,  so 
intense  that,  though  it  would  have  seemed  more  fitting  on  the 
face  of  a  child  than  of  a  man,  it  yet  was  dignified. 

"You  make  a  handsome  couple,  you  two !"  he  said. 
"Richard,  you're  a  whole  lot  taller  than  me.  When  I'm  away 
from  you  I  forget  what  a  difference  there  is  between  us.  And 
the  young  lady,  she's  fine,  too." 

"Come  on!     Come  on!"  said  Poppy  from  the  door. 

He  drew  wistfully  away  from  them.  "I  do  hope  you  both 
come  to  Jesus,"  he  murmured,  and  smiled  sweetly  over  his 
shoulder.  "Yes,  Poppy,  I'm  quite  ready.  Why,  you  aren't 
cross  with  me  over  anything,  are  you,  dear?  Well,  good-bye, 
mother." 

"Good-bye,  Roger.  And  we'll  come  to  the  meeting.  I'll 
let  you  out  myself,  my  dears." 

Very  pleased  that  she  and  Richard  were  at  last  alone  to- 
gether, Ellen  sat  down  on  one  of  the  armchairs  at  the  hearth 
and  smiled  up  at  him.  But  he  would  not  come  to  her.  He 
smiled  back  through  the  closed  visor  of  an  overmastering  pre- 
occupation, and  moved  past  her  to  the  fireplace  and  stood  with 
his  elbow  on  one  end  of  the  mantelpiece,  listening  to  the  sounds 
that  came  in  from  the  parlour  through  the  half-open  door: 
Marion's  urbane  voice,  thin  and  smooth  like  a  stretched  mem- 
brane, the  click  of  the  front-door  handle,  the  last  mounting 
squeal  from  Roger,  which  was  cut  short  by  a  gruff  whine  from 
Poppy,  and,  loudest  of  all,  the  silence  that  fell  after  the  bang- 
ing of  the  door.  '  They  heard  the  turn  of  the  electric  switch. 
Marion  must  be  standing  out  there  in  the  dark.  But  Ellen 
doubted  that  even  if  he  had  been  with  her  in  soul  as  in  body, 
and  had  spoken  to  her  the  words  she  wished,  she  could  have 
answered  him  as  she  ought,  for  a  part  of  her  soul  too  was 
standing  out  there  in  the  dark  with  Marion.  They  were  both 
of  them  tainted  with  disloyalty  to  their  own  lives. 

When  Marion  came  in  she  halted  at  the  door  and  turned 
out  all  the  lamps  save  the  candlesticks  on  the  table.  She 
passed  through  the  amber,  fire-shot  twilight  and  sat  down  in 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  449 

the  other  armchair,  and  began  to  polish  her  nails  on  the  palm 
of  her  hands.  They  were  all  of  them  lapped  in  dusk,  veiled 
with  it,  featureless  because  of  it.  Behind  them  the  candle- 
sticks cast  a  brilliant  light  on  the  disordered  table,  on  the  four 
chairs  where  Richard  and  Marion,  Roger  and  Poppy  had  sat. 
Ellen's  chair  had  been  pushed  back  against  the  wall  when  she 
rose;  one  would  not  have  known  that  Ellen  had  been  sitting 
there  too. 

Marion  kept  looking  back  at  the  illuminated  table  as  if  it 
were  a  symbol  of  the  situation  that  made  them  sit  in  the  twi- 
light without  words.  Suddenly  she  made  a  sound  of  distress. 
"Oh  dear!  Look  at  the  cakes  that  have  been  left!  Ellen, 
you  can't  have  had  anything  to  eat." 

"I've  just  had  too  good  a  tea,"  said  Ellen,  using  the  classic 
Edinburgh  formula. 

"But  you  must  have  an  eclair  or  a  cream  bun.  I  got  them 
for  you.  I  used  to  love  them  when  I  was  your  age."  She 
rose  and  began  to  move  round  the  table,  bending  over  the 
cake-plates.  Ellen  was  reminded  of  the  way  that  her  own 
mother  used  to  hover  above  the  debris  of  the  little  tea-parties 
they  sometimes  gave  in  Hume  Park  Square,  cheeping:  "I  think 
they  enjoyed  their  teas.  Do  you  not  think  so,  Ellen?"  and  sat- 
isfying an  appetite  which  she  had  been  too  solicitous  and  in- 
terested a  hostess  to  more  than  whet  in  the  presence  of  her 
friends.  That  was  how  a  mother  ought  to  be,  little,  sweet, 
and  moderate. 

Marion  brought  her  an  eclair  on  a  plate.  She  took  it  and 
stood  up,  asking  meekly :  "Shall  I  take  it  and  eat  it  somewhere 
else?  You  and  Richard'll  be  wanting  to  talk  things  over." 

"Ah,  no!"  Marion  was  startled;  and  Ellen,  to  her  own 
distress,  found  herself  exulting  because  this  mature  woman, 
who  had  dived  so  deeply  into  the  tides  of  adult  experience  in 
which  she  herself  had  hardly  been  laved,  was  facing  the  situa- 
tion so  inadequately.  She  scorned  her  for  the  stiffness  of  the 
conciliatory  gesture  she  attempted,  for  the  queer  notes  which 
her  voice  made  when  she  tried  to  alter  it  from  her  customary 
tone  of  indifference  in  saying :  "But,  Ellen  dear,  you're  one  of 
us  now.  We've  no  affairs  that  aren't  yours  too.  We  only 
wish  they  were  a  little  gayer.  .  .  ."  She  admired  the  facility 


450  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

of  her  own  response  for  not  more  than  a  minute,  for,  giving 
her  a  kind,  blindish  smile,  Marion  walked  draggingly  across 
the  hearthrug  and  took  up  her  position  at  the  disengaged  side 
of  the  fireplace  and  rested  her  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece, 
even  as  Richard  was  doing  at  its  other  end.  They  stood  side 
by  side,  without  speaking,  their  firelit  faces  glowing  darkly 
like  rubies  in  shadow,  their  eyes  set  on  the  brilliantly  lit  tea- 
table  and  its  four  chairs.  They  looked  beautiful  and  uncon- 
querable— this  tall  man  who  could  assail  all  things  with  his 
outstretched  strength,  this  broad-bodied  woman  whom  nothing 
could  assail  because  of  her  crouching  strength. 

Marion  stretched  out  her  hand  to  the  fire.  Her  insanely 
polished  nails  glittered  like  jewels. 

She  said  in  that  indifferent  tone :  "Well,  it  wasn't  so  bad." 

Some  passion  shook  him.  "Mother !  Mother !  To  think  of 
him  bringing  that  woman  into  this  house — to  meet  you  and 
Ellen!" 

"Hush,  oh  hush !    He  does  not  know." 

"But,  mother !    He  ought  to !    Anyone  could  see " 

"What  she  was.  Yes,  poor  woman.  But  remember  I  made 
a  bad  job  of  Roger.  I  gave  him  no  brains." 

"Mother — it  mustn't  happen  again.  She  can't  come  here 
again." 

She  grew  stern.  "Richard,  you  must  say  nothing  to  Roger. 
Nor  to  her.  She's  his  love  and  pride.  So  far  as  he's  con- 
cerned, she's  a  better  woman  than  I  am.  I  never  put  my  love 
and  pride  in  his  life.  If  you  speak  to  either  of  them  you  will 
.  .  .  add  to  my  already  heavy  guilt.  Besides  .  .  .  how  can 
she  hurt  Ellen  and  me?  She's  very  weak.  We're  very  strong." 

"But,  mother,  you  saw  what  she  was." 

"More  than  you  did.     She's  had  a  child  not  long  since." 

"A  child?"  He  stared  at  her  curiously,  reverently.  "How 
do  you  know?" 

"Some  people  get  a  brown  stain  on  their  face  when  they're 
having  a  baby,  and  afterwards  it  lingers  on.  I  had  it  with  you. 
Not  with  Roger.  She  has  it  now."  She  slowly  drew  her 
fingers  over  her  face,  her  eyes  wide  in  wonder.  "It's  a  queer 
thing,  birth.  .  .  ." 

Ellen  tingled  with  shame  because  such  things  were  spoken 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  451 

of  aloud,  by  someone  old.     But  Richard  muttered  huskily: 
"I  wonder  what  the  story  is.  .  .  ." 

"Something  horrible.  She's  come  from  a  good  home.  Her 
teeth  were  well  looked  after  when  she  was  a  girl.  That  hair 
took  some  conscientious  torturing  to  make  it  what  it  is.  She 
was  caught,  I  suppose,  by  her  love  of  beauty.  Did  you  ever 
hear  anything  more  pathetic  than  her  name — Poppy  Alicante  ?" 

"I  don't  see  anything  more  in  it  than  it's  an  obvious  lie." 

"It  was  much  more  than  that.  Think  of  her  as  a  little 
girl  going  with  her  mother  into  a  greengrocer's  and  hearing 
about  Alicante  grapes,  and  asking  what  Alicante  was,  and  being 
told  it  was  in  Spain,  and  making  the  most  lovely  pictures  of  it 
in  her  mind  and  keeping  them  there  ever  since.  Oh,  she's  a 
poor,  beauty-loving  thing.  That's  how  the  handsome  sailor 
picked  her  up  in  Chatham  High  Street  on  Saturday  night." 

"No  doubt  you're  right,"  he  said,  looking  into  the  fire. 

"And  she  hated  giving  up  the  child.  That's  why  she  snarls 
at  Roger.  Until  she  gets  another  she'll  be  famished.  It  was 
taken  over,  I  expect,  by  a  married  sister  or  brother  who've  got 
no  children  of  their  own.  She's  not  allowed  to  see  it  now. 
Not  since  she  left  the  nice  place  that  was  found  for  her  after 
she'd  got  over  her  trouble.  Twenty  pounds  a  year — because 
of  her  lost  character;  and  for  the  same  reason  rather  more 
work  than  the  rest  of  the  servants,  who  all  found  out  about 
it.  So  she  ran  away." 

He  interrupted  her:  "Supposing  all  that's  true.  And  I  know 
it  is.  It's  like  you,  mother,  to  read  from  a  patch  of  brown 
skin  on  a  woman's  face  things  that  other  people  would  have 
found  out  only  by  searching  registry  records  and  asking  the 
police.  It's  like  the  way  you  always  turned  your  back  on  the 
barometer  and  read  the  sky  for  news  of  the  weather.  You're 
an  old  peasant  woman  under  your  skin,  mother."  His  voice 
was  hazed  with  delight.  He  had  forgotten  the  moment  in  the 
timeless  joy  of  his  love  for  her.  Ellen,  in  the  shadows,  stirred 
and  coughed.  He  broke  out  again :  "Well,  supposing  all  that's 
true!  Are  you  going  to  be  honest  and  be  as  clear-sighted 
about  what  happened  after  she  ran  away?  Mother,  think  of 
the  things  that  have  been  done  to  her,  think  of  the  things  she's 
seen!" 


452  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

The  indifferent  tone  continued  now,  although  she  said: 
"Think  of  the  horrible  things  that  have  been  done  to  me, 
think  of  the  horrible  things  I've  seen!  Oh,  you're  right,  of 
course.  Unhappy  people  are  dangerous.  They  clutch  at  the 
happy  people  round  them  and  drag  them  down  into  the  vortex 
of  their  misery.  But  if  you're  going  to  hate  anybody  for  doing 
that,  hate  me.  Look  how  I've  dominated  you  with  my  mis- 
fortunes, look  how  I've  eaten  up  your  life  by  making  you  feel 
it  a  duty  to  compensate  me  for  what  I've  endured.  Hate  me. 
But  don't  hate  Poppy.  Oh,  that  poor,  simple  creature.  Even 
now,  after  all  that's  happened,  she'd  be  pleased  like  a  child  if 
you  took  her  to  a  fair  where  there  were  merry-go-rounds.  Oh, 
don't  hate  her.  And  don't  hate  Roger."  Wildness  flashed 
through  her  like  lightning  through  a  dense  dark  cloud.  "Don't 
hate  him,  Richard!  Take  your  mind  off  both  of  us.  We're 
all  right.  I  can  manage  everything  quite  well.  I'm  hard.  I 
haven't  got  all  those  fine  feelings  you  think  I  have.  I'm  quite 
hard.  I  can  arrange  everything  beautifully.  Roger's  happy  in 
the  Hallelujah  Army.  He's  gone  to  Jesus  for  the  love  I  ought 
to  have  given  him.  I  know  they're  thinking  of  turning  him 
out.  But  I'll  see  to  it  that  they  keep  him.  I'll  pretend  to  have 
leanings  towards  their  religion,  and  I'll  give  them  money  from 
time  to  time  so  that  they  won't  dare  get  rid  of  him.  It  will  be 
rather  amusing  squaring  them.  I  shall  enjoy  it.  We  will  be 
all  right.  Leave  us  alone.  Don't  think  of  us.  Think  of  Ellen. 
Think  of  Ellen.  How  you  hold  back  from  your  happiness !" 
she  cried  gibingly.  "I  tell  you,  if  I  had  had  your  chance  of 
happiness  when  I  was  young,  neither  my  mother  nor  my 
father  would  have  held  me  back  from  it!" 

It  was  as  if  her  soul  had  leapt,  naked  and  raging,  from  out 
of  her  mouth  when  she  said  that.  Ellen  stirred  among  the 
cushions,  feeling  unformulated  shame.  She  wondered  how 
Richard  could  endure  hearing  that  hoarse  vehemence  from  the 
lips  of  one  whom  he  must  wish  to  be  gentle  and  unpassionate. 
But  he  was  gazing  at  his  mother  trancedly  and  with  slight 
movements  of  his  hands  and  feet,  as  if  she  were  dancing  and 
he  desired  to  join  her  in  her  spinning  rhythm;  and  she,  mad, 
changeable  woman,  shivered  and  pressed  her  fingers  against 
her  mouth  to  silence  herself,  and  looked  down  on  her  skirt, 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  453 

drawling  lazily :  "Well,  here  I  am,  standing  about  in  my  out- 
door clothes.  If  there's  anything  I  hate,  it's  wearing  outdoor 
clothes  in  the  house.  However,  it'll  save  me  changing,  and  I've 
none  too  much  time  if  I'm  going  to  be  punctual  for  Roger's 
meeting." 

She  moved  towards  the  door.  He  followed  softly,  as  her 
shadow,  and  held  it  open. 

When  he  made  to  follow  her  out  of  the  room  she  turned 
sharply.  "You  needn't  come." 

"I  promised  Roger,"  he  said  falsely. 

"What  nonsense!"  she  blazed.  "I'll  tell  him  you  had  to 
stay  here  with  Ellen." 

She  banged  the  door  on  him.  He  stood  staring  at  its  panels, 
which  were  rosy  with  firelight,  and  Ellen  closed  her  eyes  for 
weariness.  After  some  seconds  she  heard  his  tread  and  felt 
him  bend  over  her.  "Ellen,"  he  mumbled,  "I  must  go  with 
mother.  That  fool  will  be  too  awful  on  the  platform.  I  must 
see  her  through." 

From  the  dark  fey  shape  he  made  against  the  firelight  she 
knew  that  he  was  not  thinking  of  her,  that  the  life  she  had 
given  him  by  her  love  no  longer  ran  in  his  veins.  She  scratched 
one  of  her  wrists.  If  she  could  have  let  the  life  he  had  given 
flow  out  of  her  veins  she  would  have  done  it.  "Ay,  do,"  she 
said.  "I  like  you  to  be  good  to  your  mother.  You  never  know 
how  long  you  may  have  her  with  you,"  she  added  piously  and 
not  without  cheerfulness. 

He  left  her  with  a  kiss  that  was  dry  and  spurious  like  a 
paper  flower.  She  sank  back  into  the  chair  and  closed  her  eyes 
again,  and  listened  for  the  closing  of  the  front  door  which 
would  leave  her  free  to  weep  or  rage  or  dance  or  do  whatever 
would  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  moment  on  her  brain.  She 
filled  in  the  throbbing  tune  by  thinking  of  the  visitors.  It  gave 
her  a  curious  thrill,  such  as  she  might  have  felt  if  she  had 
gratified  her  ambition  to  carry  a  heavy-plumed  fan  like  Sarah 
Bernhardt's,  to  reflect  that  she  had  sat  in  the  same  room  with 
a  bad  woman.  A  desire  for  unspecified  adult  things  ran 
through  her  veins,  as  if  she  had  just  heard  the  strong  initial 
blare  of  a  band.  Then  she  checked  all  thoughts,  for  from  the 
hall  she  heard  the  sound  of  argument. 


454  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

The  door  was  flung  open  by  Marion.  She  moved  towards 
the  hearth  with  a  burly  speed  which  marked  this  moment  a 
crisis  in  the  house  of  languid,  inhibited  movements,  and  cast 
herself  down  on  a  low  stool  by  the  fender.  Richard  followed 
and  stood  over  her,  the  firelight  driving  over  his  face  like  the 
glow  of  excited  blood,  the  shadows  lying  in  his  eye-sockets  like 
blindness.  She  cried  up  at  him :  "No,  I  will  not  go  if  you  come 
too.  How  can  I  go  and  sit  listening  to  him,  with  you  beside 
me  hating  him !"  He  swayed  slowly,  but  did  not  answer.  She 
stripped  herself  of  coat  and  furs  and  thrust  them  on  him. 
"There.  Take  them  up  to  my  room.  I'm  not  going.  I'll  tell 
some  lie.  Better  than  you  hating  him  like  this.  And  while 
you're  up  you'll  find  some  papers  on  my  desk  about  the  mort- 
gage on  Whitewebbs.  Attend  to  these.  And  don't  come  back 
just  now.  You  drive  me  mad  when  you  hate  Roger  so." 

When  he  had  softly  shut  the  door  she  put  her  hand  to  her 
head  and  said :  "Oh,  Ellen,  what  has  happened  to  me  ?  I  have 
lost  all  my  strength." 

But  her  voice  was  still  level,  and  she  was  but  a  squat,  crouch- 
ing mass  against  the  firelight.  Ellen  did  not  know  whether 
she  was  really  moved,  nor,  if  she  were,  whether  she  could  feel 
comradely  with  such  emotion,  since  she  had  seen  the  woman 
blench  at  the  thought  of  her  son  preaching  in  the  street  yet 
stay  complacid  at  the  prospect  of  him  being  lost  in  intellectual 
error.  So  she  did  not  answer. 

"You  must  go  for  a  long  walk  with  Richard  to-morrow," 
said  Marion  presently.  "Over  to  Rochford,  perhaps,  where 
Anne  Boleyn  lived.  It's  pretty  there." 

"That  would  be  nice,"  Ellen  answered.  She  liked  it  when 
they  talked  as  if  they  were  merely  strangers.  "Do  you  think 
it  will  be  fine  to-morrow  ?  Richard  said  you  were  awful  clever 
at  telling  the  weather." 

"I  can't  say.  I  only  looked  out  for  a  moment.  The  clouds 
are  going  and  the  moon's  rising.  But  there's  a  queer  feeling 
in  the  air  to-night.  It's  not  like  the  winter  or  spring  or  sum- 
mer or  autumn.  It's  as  if  we  had  come  into  some  fifth  season 
of  the  year."  She  fell  silent  and  sat  tapping  the  floor  with 
her  foot ;  and  asked  more  loudly  but  in  the  same  tone :  "What 
am  I  to  do,  Ellen,  to  keep  my  sons  from  quarrelling  over  me  ?" 


CHAPTER  ix  THE  JUDGE  455 

Ellen  was  sure  she  was  being  mocked;  grown-up  people 
never  asked  one's  advice.  She  muttered  sullenly:  "I  don't 
know" ;  but  as  she  spoke  she  heard  from  Marion's  dark  shape 
a  sound  of  discovery  such  as  a  searcher  might  make  when  his 
groping  fingers  closed  on  the  lost  pearl.  Its  intensity  con- 
vinced, and  she  leaned  forward,  crying  in  full  friendship: 
"You've  thought  of  something  to  settle  them?" 

But  Marion  answered,  with  that  indifference  grown  nearly 
to  a  sneer :  "Oh,  no.  ...  Oh,  no.  .  .  ." 

Ellen  leaned  back,  hating  these  adults  that  like  to  keep  their 
secrets  from  the  young. 


CHAPTER  X 

ELLEN  was  still  on  her  knees  fiddling  with  the  lock  of  the 
French  window  in  an  effort  to  discover  why  Marion  had 
found  it  so  difficult  to  open  and  shut,  when  she  saw  through 
the  lacquer  of  reflection  which  the  lit  room  painted  on  the 
uncurtained  glass  that  a  dark  mass  had  come  to  a  halt  just 
outside.  It  moved,  and  she  perceived  that  it  was  a  skirt.  She 
stood  up  to  face  the  intruder  and  looked  through  the  glass  into 
Marion's  eyes.  For  a  moment  she  stared  back  in  undisguised 
anger.  Of  course,  if  the  woman  had  had  any  sense  she  would 
never  have  formed  this  daft  idea  of  going  for  a  dander  on  the 
marshes  at  this  hour  of  the  night,  whether  her  nerves  were 
troubling  her  or  not;  but  she  never  ought  to  have  pretended 
to  be  so  set  on  it,  and  let  a  body  feel  sure  of  having  the  evening 
alone  with  Richard  as  soon  as  he  had  finished  with  those 
beastly  papers,  if  she  was  going  to  turn  back  in  five  minutes. 
Then  she  remembered  that  this  was  Richard's  mother,  and  that 
for  some  reason  he  set  great  store  by  her;  and  she  tried  to 
smile,  and  laid  her  fingers  on  the  doorknob  to  open  it.  But 
Marion  shook  her  head  and  put  out  a  prohibitory  hand  with 
so  urgent  a  gesture  that  the  unlit  lantern  which  hung  by  a 
strap  from  her  wrist  bumped  against  the  glass. 

Yet  she  remained  for  some  seconds  longer  with  her  face 
pressed  close  to  the  window.  She  was  peering  into  the  room 
with  an  expression  of  wanting  to  fix  its  contents  and  its  ap- 
pearance in  her  memory,  which  was  odd  in  the  owner  of  the 
house.  Ellen  moved  aside  in  order  not  to  impede  her  vision, 
and  stood  disliking  her  for  her  pervasive  inexplicability  and 
for  her  extreme  plainness.  She  had  been  very  ugly  all  that 
evening  since  she  came  down  to  dinner,  and  now  the  shining 
glass  in  front  of  her  face  was  acting  in  its  uncomeliness  like  a 
magnifying  lens.  Her  hair  had  suddenly  become  greasy  during 
the  last  few  hours,  and  it  showed  in  lank  loops  where  her  hat 
had  been  carelessly  jammed  down  on  her  head.  In  the  same 
short  space  of  time  her  face  seemed  to  have  grown  fatter,  and 

456 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  457 

her  skin  had  taken  on  the  pallor  of  unhealthy  obesity.  Against 
it  the  dark  down  on  her  upper  lip  looked  like  dirt.  Her  eyes 
were  not  magnificent  to-night.  After  she  had  stared  round  the 
room  she  looked  again  at  Ellen,  and  gave  her  a  forced  smile 
that  looked  the  more  unpleasant  because  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  were  joined  to  her  nose  by  deep  creases.  It  so  mani- 
festly did  not  spring  from  any  joy,  that  Ellen  could  not  answer 
it  save  by  just  such  another  false  grin.  Her  honesty  hated  this 
woman  who  had  thus  negotiated  her  into  insincerity,  and  she 
turned  away.  When  she  looked  back  the  face  had  gone. 

She  went  back  to  the  fire  and  sat  thinking  bitterly  what  a 
daft  thing  it  was  for  a  wife  to  go  wandering  round  her  own 
house  in  the  night  like  a  thief.  But  Marion  was  altogether  an 
upsetting  woman.  She  had  kept  the  dinner  waiting  for  nearly 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  when  she  came  down  it  was  revealed 
that  she  had  caused  this  delay,  which  must  have  inconvenienced 
the  kitchen  and  was  sheer  cruelty  to  Richard,  who  had  made 
next  to  nothing  of  a  tea,  by  dressing  herself  up  in  a  black 
and  gold  brocade  affair  that  it  was  sheer  madness  to  waste 
wearing  when  there  was  no  company,  and  putting  on  jewels 
which  made  her  stricken  plainness  look  the  more  soiled  and 
leaden.  Then,  once  they  sat  down  to  the  meal  she  had  done 
her  best  to  spoil,  she  had  eaten  so  slowly  that  it  dragged  on 
interminably ;  and  all  the  while  had  kept  her  great  eyes  fixed 
on  Richard's  face,  so  that  though  he  sometimes  turned  aside 
and  spoke  to  Ellen,  he  was  always  drawn  away  from  her  by 
his  sense  of  that  strong,  exigent  gaze.  The  minute  they  had 
finished,  when  there  seemed  a  chance  of  their  settling  down 
in  some  more  easy  grouping  by  the  fire,  Marion  had  curtly 
and  disagreeably  asked  him  if  he  had  gone  through  the  papers 
about  the  mortgage;  and  when  he  answered  that  he  had  not 
been  able  to  keep  his  mind  on  them  she  had  told  him  to  go 
upstairs  and  finish  them  just  as  if  he  were  a  child. 

Ellen  raised  her  upper  lip  over  her  teeth  at  the  thought  of 
Marion's  subsequent  awkwardness.  There  had  not,  when  she 
announced  her  plan  of  taking  Richard  and  Ellen  up  to  town 
the  next  morning  and  spending  the  day  shopping  and  going  to 
a  theatre,  been  the  least  real  party-giving  joy  in  her  tone.  Her 
will  seemed  to  be  holding  her  voice  in  its  hands  like  a  con- 


458  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

certina  and  waving  it  to  and  fro  and  squeezing  out  of  it  all 
sorts  of  notes ;  but  the  sound  of  generous  happiness  would  not 
come.  And  when  Ellen  tried  to  tell  her  that  it  was  very  kind 
of  her,  but  for  herself  she  would  rather  stay  quietly  in  the 
country  and  go  for  a  walk  with  Richard,  the  woman  had 
simply  lifted  her  voice  to  a  higher  pitch  and  said:  "Oh,  but 
it'll  be  great  fun.  We  must  go  before  Sunday  is  on  us."  She 
was  evidently  one  of  those  managing  bodies  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  ride  rough-shod  over  the  whole  world,  and  often  do 
it  under  the  pretence  of  kindness.  It  was  most  cunning  the 
way  she  rang  for  the  cook  to  try  and  make  it  seem  that  there 
was  a  pressing  domestic  reason  for  her  taking  this  jaunt.  But 
cook  had  let  her  down  badly,  staring  in  such  ingenuous  amaze- 
ment, and  blurting  out:  "Oh  Lor',  mum,  I  don't  want  no 
aluminium  set  now.  All  I  said  was  I  thought  our  copper 
saucepans  would  need  re-coppering  in  a  year  or  so,  and  that, 
considering  the  trouble  and  expense  that  meant,  we  might  as 
well  restock  with  aluminium."  There  had  been  a  hysterical 
stridency  about  the  way  in  which  Marion  had  flouted  the 
woman's  protests  by  repeating  over  and  over  again :  "Yes,  you 
shall  have  them  now.  There's  not  the  smallest  reason  why 
you  should  wait  for  them.  I  shall  go  up  to  Harrod's  to- 
morrow morning." 

Indeed,  Marion  was  a  queer  woman  in  all  respects,  from 
her  broad  face  and  squat  body  to  her  forced,  timbreless  voice 
and  her  unconvincing  gestures.  It  was  only  her  clumsiness 
that  had  prevented  her  from  opening  the  French  window ;  the 
lock  was  all  right.  Ellen  felt  that  she  would  die  if  she  did  not 
have  an  hour  alone  with  Richard  to  relearn  that  life  could  be 
lived  easily  and  with  grace.  But  it  would  be  just  like  the  crea- 
ture's untimeliness  and  awkwardness  to  be  still  hanging  about 
the  garden  in  readiness  and  pop  in  just  when  everything  was 
being  lovely.  Ellen  crossed  to  one  of  the  small  leaded  windows 
which  were  on  each  side  of  the  French  window  and  looked  out 
of  the  open  pane  in  its  centre.  It  was  as  she  feared.  The 
light  streaming  from  the  room  showed  her  Marion  standing 
half-way  across  the  lawn,  looking  up  at  the  top  storey  of  the 
house.  As  the  ray  found  her  she  lowered  her  head  and  made 
a  jerky,  embarrassed  movement  in  the  direction  of  Ellen,  who, 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  459 

feeling  merciless,  continued  to  hold  back  the  curtain.  Marion 
drew  her  cloak  collar  up  about  her  ears  and  stepped  aside  into 
the  darkness.  Ellen  went  and  sat  down  by  the  fire.  From 
something  in  Marion's  bearing,  she  knew  that  she  would  not 
be  back  for  some  time. 

It  would  be  beautiful  when  Richard  came  down  to  her. 
Now  that  the  room  was  purged  of  its  late  occupant  she  felt 
herself  becoming  again  the  miracle  that  Richard's  love  had 
made  her  in  the  days  before  they  left  Edinburgh.  Her  heart 
beat  quicker,  she  was  sustained  by  a  general  mirth  and  needed 
no  particular  joke  to  make  her  smile.  She  felt  the  equal  of 
the  tall  flame  that  was  driving  through  the  fire.  It  did  not 
worry  her  that  Richard  was  not  with  her,  for  she  knew  that 
at  each  moment  she  was  recovering  more  and  more  of  that  joy 
in  life  which  had  previously  come  to  her  every  morning, 
though  those  were  greyer  than  here:  which  had  been  a  real 
possession,  since  Richard  had  often,  when  he  was  tired,  found 
such  restoration  in  reading  its  signs  on  her  as  a  footsore  man 
might  find  in  throwing  himself  in  long  grass :  which  had  been 
gradually  going  from  her  ever  since  the  house  had  begun  to 
draw  her  into  its  affairs.  Now  she  was  regaining  it ;  though, 
indeed,  ever  to  have  become  conscious  of  it,  as  she  had  during 
the  time  of  being  without  it,  was  to  have  lost  the  glad  essence 
of  it.  She  quailed  and  rejoiced  like  a  convalescent  who  sets 
out  to  put  his  strength  to  the  test,  when  she  heard  the  slam- 
ming of  a  door  overhead. 

He  did  not  come  to  her  at  once,  but  looked  round  the  room 
and  said:  "Where's  Marion?" 

It  would  be  as  well  not  to  speak  of  the  plain  face  pressed 
against  the  window,  of  the  dark  loiterer  in  the  garden.  Mur- 
muring, "Oh,  she'll  be  back  in  a  minute,"  she  opened  her  arms 
to  him. 

He  swung  her  out  of  the  chair  and  sat  down  himself,  gath- 
ering her  very  close.  "Oh,  my  Ellen,  you  are  the  very  colour 
of  that  red  deer  I  saw  run  across  the  road !"  he  whispered  in 
her  ear.  She  knew  immediately,  from  the  peace  that  fell  on 
his  deep,  driving  breath,  from  the  way  that  his  lips  lifted  and 
let  the  splendour  of  his  eyes  shine  out  again,  that  he  too  was 
aware  of  her  recovery  of  normal  joy  and  was  refreshing  him- 


460  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

self  with  it.  She  drooped  down  towards  his  mouth,  but  at  the 
last  minute  he  avoided  her  kiss  and  said  irritably:  "I 
wonder  if  Roger  made  an  awful  ass  of  himself  preaching 
to-night?" 

"I've  no  doubt,"  answered  Ellen,  "that  he  made  Jesus  most 
dislikeable.  But  with  all  the  attention  Christianity  gets,  it  can 
put  up  with  a  setback  here  and  there." 

"It's  not  that  I'm  worrying  about,"  he  told  her.  "I  can't 
bear  having  mother's  name  bandied  about  again  after  the  hell 
of  a  time  she's  had."  He  stared  in  front  of  him  with  obsessed 
eyes. 

Ellen  shifted  uneasily  on  his  knee.  She  would  have  liked 
to  take  his  face  between  her  hands  and  tilt  it  down  till  his 
eyes  looked  into  hers ;  but  that  was  no  use,  for  however  she 
tilted  it,  his  eyes  would  shift  from  her  face  to  focus  them- 
selves on  some  blankness  which  he  could  fill  with  his  obses- 
sion. She  folded  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  clung  closer, 
closer.  It  would  be  all  right  if  she  could  have  a  little  time 
alone  with  him.  The  thudding  of  his  heart  made  her  think  of 
the  engine  of  a  steamer ;  and  so  of  the  voyage  which  they  had 
planned  to  make  when  they  were  married,  landing  only  where 
the  sea  beat  on  a  shore  as  lovely  as  itself.  She  sat  forward  on 
his  knee  and  picked  up  a  copy  of  the  Times  which  lay  on  a 
small  table  near  them,  and  turned  it  over  till  she  found  the 
mails  and  shipping  columns ;  and  she  began  to  chant  what  her 
eye  first  saw. 

"  'Lamport  and  Holt.  Bruyere,  passed  Fernando  Noronha, 
21st,  Clyde,  for  Rosario.  Lalande,  left  Santos  20th,  Liver- 
pool for  Rio  Grande.  Leighton,  arrived  Buenos  Aires  20th 
from  Liverpool.  Vestris,  left  Pernambuco  17th  for  New  Or- 
leans.' Richard,  have  you  ever  been  to  Pernambuco?" 

"Once,"  he  said. 

"What  like  is  it  ?"  she  said  in  her  Scotch  way. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  .  .  .  It's  supposed  to  be  like  Venice." 

"Like  Venice?    Why?" 

"Oh,  there  are  waterways  .  .  .  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing.  .  .  ." 

She  looked  at  him  as  one  might  at  a  friend  whom  one  had 
supposed  to  be  suffering  from  some  mild  ailment,  but  who 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  461 

mentioned  casually  some  symptom  which  one  knows  the  mark 
of  a  disease  which  has  no  cure.  If  he  had  lost  his  pleasure 
in  prohibiting  time  to  be  a  thief  by  recreating  past  days  when 
the  earth  had  shown  him  its  beauty,  his  mother's  woes  had 
made  him  grievously  sick  in  his  soul.  "Ah,  well!"  she  said; 
and  let  the  silence  settle. 

After  a  while  he  asked  impatiently:  "Where  is  mother?" 

She  put  her  hand  to  her  head.  Of  course  trouble  would 
come  of  this,  as  it  did  of  all  that  Marion  did  or  that  was  done 
to  her.  "She's  gone  out,"  she  said  timorously. 

"Gone  out!  At  this  time  of  night?  Do  you  mean  into  the 
garden  ?" 

"Yes,  into  the  garden,"  she  temporised.  "She  said  her  head 
was  bad  and  that  she  felt  she'd  be  the  better  for  a  blow." 

"Excuse  me,"  he  said  curtly,  and  lifted  her  from  his  knee, 
and  went  to  the  window  and  drew  back  the  curtains.  An 
elm-tree  in  a  grove  to  the  east  held  the  moon  in  its  topmost 
branches  like  a  nest  builded  by  a  bird  of  light.  It  showed  the 
garden  an  empty  silver  square,  trenched  at  the  end  by  the  soot- 
black  shadow  of  the  hedge.  "She's  not  there!"  he  exclaimed. 

"Well,  she  did  say  something  about  going  down  on  the 
marshes."  Ellen  felt  a  little  sick  as  she  saw  his  face  whiten. 
She  had  known  when  the  woman  announced  her  daft  intention 
that  trouble  would  come  of  it.  There  was  going  to  be  more 
of  this  Yaverland  emotion,  quiet  and  unhysteric  and  yet  mad- 
dening, like  some  of  the  lower  notes  on  the  organ. 

"Going  down  on  the  marshes  at  nine  o'clock  on  a  freezing 
night !"  He  turned  on  her  with  a  sharpness  that  she  felt  should 
have  been  incompatible  with  their  relationship.  "Why  didn't 
you  come  and  tell  me  she  was  doing  this?" 

Her  temper  spurted.  "How  should  I  know  there  was  any- 
thing unusual  in  it  ?  You  are  all  strange  in  this  house !"  For 
a  second  they  looked  at  each  other  in  hatred;  then  eyes 
softened  and  they  looked  ashamed,  like  children  who  have 
quarrelled  over  a  toy  and  have  pulled  it  to  pieces.  She  thought 
jealously  of  the  woman  who  was  the  cause  of  all  this  trouble, 
walking  down  there  in  the  quietness  of  the  marshes,  where  all 
day  she  herself  had  longed  to  be.  Despairingly,  she  moved 
close  to  him,  slipping  her  hand  inside  his,  and  said,  trying  to 


±62  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

hold  back  the  thing  that  was  drifting  away:' "I'm  sorry.  But 
she  said  she  wanted  to  clear  her  head  after  the  day  she'd 
had.  And  I  could  never  think  she  was  a  woman  who'd  be 
afraid  of  walking  in  the  dark.  And  it  seemed  natural  enough. 
Because  it  has  been  a  day  for  her,  hasn't  it?" 

He  agreed  grimly:  "Yes,  it's  been  a  day,"  and  looked  over 
his  shoulder  at  the  quiet  silvern  garden,  and  shivered.  "Tell 
me,"  he  asked,  with  a  timidity  that  filled  her  with  fear,  since 
it  was  the  last  quality  she  had  ever  expected  to  colour  his  tone 
to  her,  "what  was  she  like,  before  she  went  out?" 

"Oh,  verra  bright,"  said  Ellen,  with  conscious  acidity.  "She 
was  all  for  making  arrangements  for  you  and  me  to  go  up 
to  town  with  her  to-morrow  and  see  a  play,  and  I  don't  know 
all  what.  And  she  had  the  cook  in  to  tell  her  about  some 
aluminium  saucepans  that  we're  going  to  buy  to-morrow  if 
we  go." 

"Oh!"  He  was  manifestly  relieved.  "Well,  I  suppose  it's 
all  right." 

"Yes,  it's  all  right,"  she  told  him  pettishly ;  and  then  tried 
to  make  amends  by  speaking  sympathetically  of  Marion.  "I 
can  understand  why  your  mother  thought  it  would  do  her 
good  to  go  out.  If  you've  lived  all  your  life  in  a  place  I  expect 
every  field  and  tree  gets  a  meaning  for  you.  No  doubt,"  she 
went  on,  unconscious  of  any  feeling  but  contentment  that  she 
was  so  successfully  taking  cognisance  of  Marion's  more  pa- 
thetic aspect,  "the  poor  thing's  gone  for  a  walk  to  some  place 
where  she  can  get  a  bit  of  comfort  by  remembering  the  time 
when  she  was  very  young.  Richard,  Richard,  what  have  I 
said?" 

He  looked  at  her  coldly.  "Nothing.  What  could  you  have 
said?"  But  he  went  to  the  window  as  if  he  had  been  told 
something  that  had  made  him  hasten,  and  opened  it  and  stepped 
outside.  Against  the  moonlight  he  was  only  a  silhouette;  but 
from  the  hawkishness  of  the  profile  he  turned  to  the  west  she 
knew  that  he  was  allowing  himself  to  wear  again  that  awful 
look  of  rage  which  had  made  her  cry  aloud.  He  stepped  in 
again  and  said :  "I'm  sorry,  Ellen,  but  I  must  go  and  look  for 
her/' 

She  might  have  known  that  she  would  not  have  her  evening 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  463 

alone  with  him.  "May  I  come  with  you?"  she  asked  through 
tears. 

"No,  no,  it  wouldn't  be  any  fun  for  you,"  he  answered 
fussily,  "scrambling  about  these  fields  in  the  dark." 

"Let  me  come  with  you !"  she  begged ;  and  guilefully,  seeing 
his  brows  knit  sullenly,  she  waved  her  hand  round  the  room, 
which  she  knew  must  be  to  him  sombre  with  the  day's  events, 
and  cried:  "I  shall  feel  afraid,  waiting  here." 

"Very  well.     Go  and  put  your  things  on.     But  be  quick." 

He  had  his  hat  and  coat  and  stick  when  she  came  down ; 
and  he  had  grudged  the  time  spent  in  waiting  for  her.  Wearily 
she  followed  him  out  of  the  window.  From  what  her  mother 
had  told  her  about  men,  she  had  always  known  that  even 
Richard,  since  he  was  male,  might  forget  his  habit  of  worship 
towards  her  and  turn  libellous  as  husbands  are,  and  pretend 
that  she  was  being  tiresome  when  she  was  not.  But  she  would 
never  have  believed  that  it  could  come  so  soon.  And  it  was 
spoiling  her.  She  no  longer  felt  possessed  of  the  perfect  con- 
trol of  her  actions,  nor  sure  of  her  own  nobility.  Only  a 
second  or  two  ago  she  had  betrayed  her  sex  by  pretending  to 
be  frightened  by  assuming  one  of  the  base  qualities  which  tra- 
dition lyingly  ascribed  to  women,  because  she  had  to  be  in  his 
presence  no  matter  at  what  price.  There  was  no  knowing 
where  all  this  would  end. 

But  in  the  inventive  beauty  of  the  night  she  found  distrac- 
tion, for  it  had  wrought  many  fantastical  changes  in  the  dull 
world  the  day  had  handed  it.  The  frost  had  made  the  soil 
that  had  been  sodden  metal-hard,  while  preserving  its  rough- 
ness, so  that  to  tread  the  paths  was  like  walking  on  beaten 
silver.  Since  its  rising,  the  moon  had  sown  and  raised  a 
harvest  of  new  plants  in  the  garden ;  for  the  rose-trees,  emaci- 
ated with  leaflessness,  had  each  a  shadow  that  twisted  on  the 
earth  like  ground-ivy  or  climbed  the  wall  like  a  creeper. 
Through  an  orchard  piebald  with  moonbeams  and  shadow, 
and  a  gate,  glaring  as  with  new  white  paint,  set  in  a  lichen- 
grey  hedge,  they  passed  out  on  the  grizzled  hillside.  He  did 
not  take  her  down  the  path  by  which  she  and  Marion  had  gone 
on  to  the  marshes  the  previous  afternoon,  but  plunged  for- 
ward into  the  short  grey  fur  of  the  moonlit  field,  where  there 


THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

was  no  path,  and  led  her  up  in  a  slanting  course  towards  the 
top  of  the  elm-hedge  that  striped  the  hill.  It  was  rough  walk- 
ing over  the  steep  frozen  hummocks,  and  she  wished  he  would 
not  walk  so  fast.  But  it  was  lovely  going  up  like  this,  and  with 
every  step  widening  the  wide,  whitely-blazing  view.  The  elm 
trees  stood  like  chased  toys  made  by  silversmiths  where  the 
light  struck  them;  and  in  the  darkness  seemed  like  harsh 
twiggy  nets  hung  on  tall  poles  to  catch  the  stars.  Scattered 
over  the  polished  harbour,  the  black  boats  squatted  on  their 
shadows  and  the  tide  licked  towards  them  with  an  ebony  and 
silver  tongue.  But  far  out  in  the  fairway  a  liner  and  some 
lesser  steamers  carried  their  spilling  cargo  of  orange  bright- 
ness, and  the  further  fringe  of  the  night  was  spoiled  by  the 
comprehensive  yellow  wink  of  a  lighthouse;  and  these  things 
tainted  the  black  and  white  immaculacy  of  the  hour.  It  was 
not  on  earth  but  overhead  that  the  essence  of  the  night  dis- 
played itself.  Light  rushed  from  the  moon  into  the  sky  like 
a  strong  wind,  carrying  before  it  some  shining  vapours  that 
might  have  been  angels'  clouts  blown  off  a  heavenly  line.  It 
was  as  if  some  horseplay  was  going  on  among  the  ethereal 
forces;  for  the  stars,  dimmed  by  the  violent  brilliance  of  the 
moon,  were  like  tapers  seen  through  glass,  and  were  held,  per- 
haps, by  invisible  beings  who  had  been  drawn  to  their  windows 
by  the  sound  of  carnival.  To  its  zenith  the  night  was  packed 
with  gaiety. 

"Richard,  Richard,  is  it  not  beautiful?"  she  cried. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  answered. 

They  reached  the  topmost  elm  in  the  row,  and  opened  a 
gate  into  a  field  which  stretched  inland  from  the  hill's  brow. 
Under  the  shadow  of  its  seaward  edge  they  still  walked  west- 
erly, the  ploughed  earth  looking  like  a  patch  of  grey  corduroy 
lying  to  their  right.  It  struck  her  that  he  was  moving  now 
like  a  hunter  stalking  his  quarry,  as  if  the  lightness  of  his  feet 
were  a  weapon,  as  if  he  were  looking  forward  to  an  exciting 
kill.  At  the  corner  of  the  field  they  stopped  before  a  gap  in 
the  hedge.  Triple  barbed  wire  crossed  a  vista  of  close-cropped 
grass  running  to  trees  that  lifted  dark  spires  against  the  pale 
meridian  starlight. 

"Wait,"  said  Richard. 


CHAPTER  z  THE  JUDGE  465 

He  went  forward  and  stamped  down  the  long  grasses  at  one 
side  of  the  gap,  and  then  bent  nearly  double  and  seemed  to  be 
pressing  against  something  with  his  hands  and  his  knee.  The 
barbed  wire  began  to  hum,  to  buzz  excitedly;  there  was  the 
groan  of  cracking  wood,  and  the  grunt  of  his  deep,  straining 
breath.  She  found  herself  running  her  hands  over  her  face 
and  down  her  body  and  thinking,  "Since  he  is  like  that,  and 
I  am  like  this,  all  will  be  well."  That  was  quite  meaningless ; 
it  must  be  true  that  one  of  the  moon's  rays  was  unreason. 
The  barbed  wire  danced  and  fell  to  the  ground,  singing  angrily. 
Richard  had  broken  in  two  the  stake  which  supported  it. 

"Come  on,"  he  ordered  her,  and  lifted  her  over  the  tangle 
of  wires.  They  walked  forward,  again  on  the  hilltop's  un- 
screened edge.  The  harbour  was  hidden  by  the  elms,  but 
below  lay  the  frosted  marsh  and  islands,  girdled  by  the  glisten- 
ing sea-walls  and  their  coal  black  shadows,  and  great  wide 
Kerith,  its  expanse  jewelled  here  and  there  by  the  lights  of 
homesteads.  It  was  beautiful,  but  she  did  not  say  anything 
about  it  to  Richard,  who  was  walking  on  ahead,  though  there 
did  not  seem  any  reason  why  they  should  walk  in  single  file, 
for  the  ground  was  level  and  the  grass  short.  There  was 
indeed  a  suavity  about  this  place  which  was  not  to  be  found 
m  fields  or  commons.  The  line  of  trees  towards  which  they 
were  going  was  only  a  spur  of  a  dense  wood  that  stretched 
inland,  and  light  from  some  moonflooded  place  beyond  out- 
lined their  winter-naked  bodies  and  showed  them  beautiful 
with  a  formal  afforested  grace. 

"Is  this  a  park?"  she  whispered,  running  forward  to  his 
side. 

"Yes.    My  father's  park." 

"Oh !"  she  breathed  in  surprise ;  then,  flaming  up  in  loyalty, 
cried:  "What  a  shame  it  isn't  yours!" 

He  made  an  exclamation  of  anger  and  disgust,  and  said 
coldly:  "Can't  you  understand  that  I  am  glad  that  nothing 
which  was  his  is  mine?" 

Meekly  she  murmured :  "That's  natural,  that's  natural,"  and 
fell  behind. 

They  passed  the  lacy  clump  of  withered  bracken,  casting  a 
shadow  much  more  substantial  than  itself,  which  was  the  last 


466  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

dwindled  outpost  of  the  screen  of  trees;  and  Richard  hissed 
over  his  shoulder,  "Hush !"  though  she  had  not  spoken.  But 
nothing  could  spoil  this.  The  silver  forest  waited  in  a  half 
circle  round  a  clearing  that  looked  marshy  with  moonbeams; 
and  in  the  centre  of  the  arc,  set  forward  from  the  trees,  shone 
a  small  temple,  looking  out  to  sea.  It  had  four  white  pillars, 
which  were  vague  with  excessive  light,  columns  of  gleaming 
mist;  and  these  upheld  a  high  pediment,  covered  with  deep 
stone  mouldings  which  cast  such  shadows  and  received  such 
brightness  that  it  looked  like  a  rich  casket  chased  by  some 
giant  jeweller.  That  it  should  last  longer  than  a  sigh  did  not 
seem  possible. 

But  it  endured,  it  endured;  until  the  urgent  advocacy  of 
romance  which  was  somehow  inherent  in  its  beauty,  and  which 
was  not  likely  to  be  fulfilled,  caused  an  ache.  She  caught  her 
breath  in  a  sob. 

"You  think  it  beautiful?"  asked  Richard,  close  to  her 
ear. 

"Oh,  yes !     Oh,  yes !" 

"I  had  a  summer-house  in  that  villa  of  mine  at  Rio,"  he 
said,  hotly  and  defiantly,  "which  was  just  like  this,  but  much 
more  beautiful." 

He  stepped  forward  and  began  to  move  towards  the  temple 
with  that  air  of  stalking  a  quarry.  She  followed  him  wearily, 
feeling  that  it  was  not  right  that  they  should  have  come  here 
like  this.  They  should  have  come  in  some  different  way.  At 
each  step  the  temple  grew  higher  before  them,  more  candid, 
more  immaculate,  but  its  beauty  did  not  soften  his  inexorable 
aspect.  When  they  could  see  the  pale  wedges  which  the  moon 
drove  in  between  the  columns  he  paused  and  stared,  and  drew 
from  his  pocket  something  dark  which  lay  easily  in  his  hand. 
"What's  that?  What's  that?"  she  asked  in  panic.  "Only  an 
electric  torch,"  he  muttered,  without  surprise  at  her  suspicion, 
and  went  with  springing,  silent,  detective  gait  up  the  three  steps 
of  the  temple. 

She  remained  without,  drooping.  Would  he  find  his  mother 
there?  She  hoped  so,  for  then  they  could  all  go  home  and 
leave  this  place,  which  she  felt  despised  her.  The  tall  trees 
of  the  forest,  lifting  their  bare  branches  like  antlers  against 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  467 

the  stars,  seemed  to  be  holding  their  heads  high  in  contempt 
of  her  defeat.  For  so  to  be  forgotten  was  defeat. 

No  sounds  came  from  the  temple,  and  she  timidly  went  up 
the  steps  and  passed  into  the  interior,  which  was  cut  by  the 
colonnade  into  narrow  chambers  of  shadows  and  broader 
chambers  of  light.  At  first  she  could  not  see  him  anywhere, 
and  cried  in  alarm :  "Richard !" 

"I'm  here,"  he  answered.  He  was  standing  beside  her,  lean- 
ing against  a  pillar,  but  put  out  no  hand  to  soothe  her  fear. 

"Have  you  not  found  her?"  she  quavered. 

He  let  the  yellow  circle  of  the  electric  torch  travel  over  the 
cracked  stucco-wall  that  faced  them,  the  paintless  door  at  its 
left  extremity,  the  drift  of  dead  leaves  on  the  stone  floor. 

"What  does  that  door  open  on  to?"  asked  Ellen,  forgetting 
the  reason  for  their  search  in  the  queerness  of  the  place. 

"A  staircase  up  to  the  room  above." 

"What  a  lovely  place,"  she  cried  joyfully,  trying  to  remind 
him  of  the  existence  of  happiness,  "to  play  in  in  the  summer! 
Could  one  sleep  up  there,  do  you  think?" 

He  switched  off  the  light.  "I  daresay,"  he  said  gruffly  in  the 
darkness. 

"And  look!"  She  pointed  to  a  moonlit  niche  in  the  middle 
of  the  wall  high  and  deep  enough  to  hold  a  life-sized  statue. 
"It  would  be  fun  if  I  stood  up  there,  wouldn't  it?" 

There  was  silence;  and  then  amazingly,  his  voice  cracked 
out  on  her  like  a  whip.  "Why  do  you  say  that?  Did  anybody 
tell  you  about  this  place?  Has  she  told  you  anything 
about  it?" 

"Why,  no!"  she  stammered.  "Nobody's  told  me  a  thing 
of  it !  I  just  thought  it  would  be  fun  if  I  were  to  stand  up 
there  like  a  statue.  You  take  me  up  too  quick." 

His  passion  died  suddenly.  "No,"  he  said  weakly,  exhaust- 
edly.  "Of  course  she  wouldn't  tell  you.  I  was  stupid.  Yes, 
you're  quite  right.  That's  what  a  man  would  do  with  a  woman, 
wouldn't  he,  if  they  were  here  together  and  they  were  lovers? 
He'd  make  her  stand  up  there."  Insanely  he  switched  on  the 
electric  torch  and  flashed  it  up  and  down  the  niche,  though 
in  the  dazzling  moonlight  its  rays  were  but  a  small  circular 
soilure. 


468  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

"But  it's  not  summer  now,"  she  reminded  him  tenderly,  lay- 
ing her  hand  on  his  sleeve.  "Since  she's  not  here,  let's  go 
home.  Think  of  those  bonny  fires  burning  away  and  nobody 
the  better  for  them!" 

"That's  what  he'd  do,  he'd  make  her  stand  up  there,"  he 
muttered,  sending  the  light  up  and  down  the  niche  very  slowly, 
as  if  in  time  to  slow  thoughts. 

She  turned  and  went  down  the  steps  and  walked  away,  hold- 
ing her  hands,  close  to  her  eyes  like  blinkers,  so  that  she  might 
be  the  less  afflicted  by  the  night,  whose  beauty  was  a  reproach 
to  her.  A  desire  to  look  out  towards  the  sea  and  the  flatlands 
came  on  her.  This  temple  set  among  the  woods  was  a  human 
place ;  men  had  laid  the  stones,  men  had  planted  the  trees,  men 
had  thought  of  it  before  it  was.  It  was  the  stage  for  a  scene 
in  the  human  drama,  which  she  had  not  been  able  to  play. 
But  the  sea  and  the  flatlands  were  not  made  by  men;  they 
made  humanity  seem  a  little  thing,  and  human  success  and 
failure  not  reasonable  causes  for  loud  laughter  or  loud  weep- 
ing. At  the  hill's  edge  she  leaned  against  a  tree  and  gazed 
down  on  the  moon-diluted  waters,  on  the  moon-powdered 
lands,  and  was  jealous  of  the  plain,  disturbing  woman  who 
kept  herself  covered  with  the  quietness  of  the  marshes  to  the 
distress  of  others;  and  saw  suddenly,  on  the  path  at  the  foot 
of  the  slope,  the  far,  weak  ray  of  a  dancing  lantern. 

She  ran  back  to  the  temple.  All  she  cared  for  really  was 
pleasing  him.  "Richard,  Richard!  I've  found  her!  She's 
down  there  on  the  marshes!" 

He  was  out  beside  her  in  a  second.  "Where?  How  do 
you  know?" 

"I  saw  her  lantern  down  on  the  marshes !" 

When  they  got  back  to  the  hill's  edge  the  light  was  still  to 
be  seen,  bobbing  along  towards  the  elm  brow.  Richard  clipped 
Ellen's  waist  to  show  her  how  well  pleased  he  was  with  her. 
"Ah,  that'll  be  Marion!"  he  said.  "Nobody  else  would  be 
on  the  marshes  at  this  hour."  Then  a  little  wind  of  anger 
blew  over  his  voice.  "Has  she  been  to  his  tomb?  Can  she 
have  been  to  his  tomb  in  the  time?  It's  a  steep  climb  for  her. 
I  wonder.  ...  I  wonder.  .  .  ." 

The  lantern  bobbed  out  of  sight  behind  the  elm  row.    Feel- 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  469 

ing  that  they  were  again  alone  together,  Ellen  raised  her  lips 
to  be  kissed,  but  he  had  already  turned  away.  "Let's  go  home 
now !"  he  said  urgently.  "I  want  to  know  where  she's  been." 

The  place  seemed  far  more  beautiful  to  her  than  it  had  done 
before.  "Oh!  Now  you're  sure  she's  quite  safe,  mayn't  we 
stay  here  a  little?"  she  begged. 

"No,  no.  Some  other  night.  I'll  bring  you  to-morrow 
night.  But  not  now,  not  now." 

She  followed  laggingly,  looking  about  her  with  infatuation. 
There  was  something  religious  about  the  scene.  Rites  of  some 
true  form  of  worship  might  fitly  be  celebrated  here.  All 
appeared  more  majestic  and  more  sacred  than  in  the  strained, 
bickering  moments  before  she  showed  him  the  lantern.  Now 
she  perceived  that  it  was  the  silver  circle  of  trees  which  was 
the  real  temple,  and  that  the  marble  belvedere  was  but  a 
human  offering  laid  before  the  shrine.  It  was  in  there,  along 
the  ebony  paths  which  ran  among  the  glistening  thickets,  that 
one  would  find  the  presence  of  the  divinity. 

"Oh,  Richard !  It  will  never  be  so  beautiful  as  this  on  any 
other  night !  Let  us  stay !" 

"No.  It  will  be  just  as  good  any  moonlit  night.  I  swear 
I'll  bring  you.  But  now  I  want  to  get  back  home." 

He  slipped  her  arm  through  his  to  make  her  come.  She 
stumbled  along,  turning  her  face  aside  towards  those  mystic 
woods.  At  the  end  of  those  paths  was  another  clearing,  wide 
but  smaller  than  this,  and  girdled  all  sides  by  the  forest;  and 
there  was  something  there.  .  .  .  Another  temple?  A  statue? 
An  event  ?  She  did  not  know.  But  if  they  found  it,  they  would 
be  happy  for  ever.  .  .  . 

"Richard " 

"No." 

He  swung  her  over  the  tangled  wires,  and  they  hurried 
through  the  ploughed  field.  When  they  came  to  the  gate  at 
the  top  of  the  elm-row  they  saw  below  them,  on  the  path  up 
from  the  marshes  to  the  orchard  gate,  the  bobbing  lantern. 

"She's  going  fairly  quickly,"  he  said  softly,  speculatively. 
"I  wonder  if  she's  been  to  his  tomb?  Do  you  think  she's  had 
time?" 

"I    don't    know,"    Ellen    murmured,    disquieted    that    he 


470  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

should  ask  her  when  he  must  be  aware  she  could  not  tell. 

"Oh,  well !"  he  exclaimed,  writh  a  sudden  change  to  loudness 
and  bluffness,  switching  on  the  electric  torch  and  turning  it  on 
the  earth  at  their  feet.  "We'll  find  out  when  we  get  home. 
Let's  hurry  back." 

They  ran  across  the  hillside,  Ellen  following  desperately, 
with  a  dread  that  if  she  tripped  and  delayed  him  he  might  not 
be  able  to  behave  quite  nicely,  the  circle  of  light  he  cast  on 
the  ground  for  her  guidance.  The  humped  and  raw-edged 
frozen  earth  hurt  her  feet.  The  speed  they  went  at  shook  the 
breath  out  of  her  lungs.  At  an  easy,  comfortable  pace,  the 
lantern  bobbed  its  way  into  the  orchard  and  up  towards  the 
garden.  She  was  the  lucky  woman,  Marion. 

"Good,"  said  Richard,  as  they  passed  through  the  gate. 
"You  did  that  in  fine  style." 

"Why  do  you  need  to  hurry  so  ?"  she  protested.  "You  have 
all  night  now  to  ask  her  where  she  has  been." 

"I  want  to  find  out  if  she  has  been  to  his  tomb,"  he  repeated 
with  dull,  drilling  persistence. 

When  they  came  to  the  end  of  the  garden  he  drew  up  sharply. 
"Why  is  she  standing  by  the  servant's  door?  Why  the  devil 
is  she  always  doing  such  extraordinary  things?" 

Ellen  saw  in  front  of  her,  through  a  screen  of  bushes  that 
ran  from  the  left-hand  corner  of  the  house  to  the  left  wall  of 
the  garden,  the  steady  rays  of  the  lantern  come  to  rest.  "You'd 
better  go  and  ask  her,"  she  said  pettishly. 

He  crossed  the  lawn  quickly  and  halted  before  a  trellis  arch 
which  pierced  this  screen,  and  motioned  her  to  go  before  him. 
At  that  moment  there  came  the  sound  of  knocking  near  by. 
He  caught  his  breath,  pressed  on  her  heels  impatiently,  and 
when  they  entered  the  tiled  yard  brushed  past  her  and  walked 
towards  the  lantern,  which  was  close  to  the  door  in  the  side 
of  the  house,  calling  querulously :  "Mother !  Mother !" 

The  light  swung  and  wavered.  "What  is  the  woman  up  to  ?" 
thought  Ellen  crossly.  The  strong  yellow  rays  of  the  lantern 
dazzled  before  them  and  prevented  them  from  seeing  anything 
of  its  bearer,  though  the  moonlight  beams  were  still  unclouded. 

"Mother!"  Richard  cried  irascibly,  and  levelled  the  torch 
on  her  like  a  revolver. 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  471 

Its  brightness  showed  the  dewy  roundness,  towsled  with  per- 
plexity, of  a  doe-eyed  girl  of  Ellen's  age. 

"Ach !"  said  Richard,  shouting  with  rage.  "Who  are  you  ? 
Who  are  you?" 

It  struck  Ellen  that  his  refusal  of  any  recognition  of  the 
girl's  sweetness  was  unnatural;  that  it  would  have  been  more 
sane  and  wholesome,  though  it  would  have  pricked  her  jealousy, 
if  he  had  shown  some  flush  of  pleasure  at  this  gentle,  bucolic, 
nut-brown  beauty. 

"Please,  sir,"  gabbled  the  girl  with  her  wet,  foolish,  pretty 
lips,  "I'm  Annie  Brickett,  and  your  cook's  my  auntie,  and  I 
come  over  to  say  my  married  sister's  had  a  little  baby,  and  it's 
before  her  time,  so  would  auntie  give  us  the  clothes  she  was 
making  ?" 

The  door  opened,  and  aproned  figures  looked  out  of  the 
kitchen  brightness  at  them. 

"Where  is  your  mistress?"  Richard  asked  them,  cutting  into 
the  girl's  sweet,  silly  speech.  "Has  she  come  back?" 

The  servants  all  started  making  twittering,  consequential 
noises.  "No,  sir,  she  isn't."  "We  didn't  know,  any  of  us,  you 
was  out  till  the  lady  and  gentleman  come." 

"What  lady  and  gentleman?" 

The  two  younger  women  shrunk  back  and  left  the  cook  to 
answer.  "Mr.  Roger  Peacey,  sir,  and  the  lady."  From  the 
hindmost  girl  there  came  a  giggle. 

That  was  why  they  had  not  heard  the  knocking  at  the  door. 
They  had  all  been  sitting  laughing  at  his  mother's  other  son  and 
going  over  the  family  history.  Ellen  shrank  back  from  the 
light.  Marion's  misfortunes  made  things  very  ill  to  deal  with ; 
they  seemed  to  bring  out  the  worst  in  everybody.  And  how 
the  whole  affair  was  hurting  Richard !  He  turned  on  his  heel 
and  walked  back  to  the  trellis  arch  and  went  through  it  without 
waiting  for  her.  By  the  time  she  had  followed  him  round  the 
corner  of  the  house  he  was  opening  the  French  window  into 
the  dining-room.  He  found  it  quite  easy  to  open;  again  she 
thought  with  rage  and  contempt  of  the  way  that  Marion  had 
fumbled  with  the  handle.  She  had  to  run  along  the  path  lest 
in  his  forgetfulness  he  shut  her  out  into  the  night. 

She  found  him  halted  just  within  the  room,  pulling  off  his 


472  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

gauntlets  and  forcing  a  white  smile  towards  Roger,  who  was 
standing  swaying  on  the  hearthrug,  his  cheeks  dribbled  with 
tears.  Poppy  stood  beside  him,  staring  sullenly  at  a  blank  wall, 
her  mouth  a  little  open  with  distaste  for  him. 

"So  you're  giving  us  another  visit,"  said  Richard,  in  that 
hollow  conscientious  tone  of  kindness  he  had  used  to  them  in 
the  afternoon. 

Roger  opened  his  mouth  but  could  not  speak;  then  flapped 
his  hands  to  make  it  plain  this  was  an  occasion  of  importance, 
and  cried  bleatingly :  "I've  come  to  say  that  I  forgive  you  all." 

"Forgive  us!"  exclaimed  Richard,  swept  away  to  the  bleak 
extremity  of  rage.  Then  checked  himself.  "Oh,  for  not  com- 
ing to  your  meeting.  We  hoped  you  would.  Ellen  was  tired." 

"I  couldn't  bear  to  think  of  you  p'raps  going  to  bed  and 
feeling  that  I  was  harbouring  ill  thoughts  towards  you,  not 
realising  that  now  I've  got  Jesus  I'll  forgive  anything  that  any- 
body does  against  me!"  His  voice  wallowed  rhapsodically. 
"So  Poppy  and  I  just  nipped  in  here  instead  of  going  straight 
back  to  the  Colony." 

Poppy  wriggled  her  body  about  in  her  clothes  in  an  agony 
of  desire  to  disassociate  herself  from  him,  from  the  situation. 

"That  was  good  of  you,"  said  Richard. 

"And  now" — the  whistling  tone  came  back  in  his  speech — 
"I  want  to  tell  mother !" 

"You  can't  do  that.    She  isn't  in." 

"What,  weren't  you  all  out  together  ?  Didn't  she  come  home 
with  you?" 

"No." 

"Then,  love  o'  goodness,  where  is  she  at  this  time  of  night?" 

"Down  on  the  marshes,"  said  Richard  casually.  "She  had 
a  headache.  She  thought  a  walk  in  the  night  air  would  do  her 
good."  Slowly  and  deliberately  he  smoothed  out  his  gauntlets 
and  laid  them  down  on  the  table. 

"Oh,"  murmured  Roger,  and  was  silent  until  Richard  put 
out  his  hand  and  straightened  the  gloves,  making  them  lie 
parallel  with  the  grain  of  the  wood.  Then  suddenly  he  ran 
round  the  table  and  looked  up  into  his  brother's  face.  "Here ! 
What's  the  matter  with  mother?" 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  473 

"Nothing!  Nothing!"  exclaimed  Richard  in  exasperation. 
"She's  down  on  the  marshes,  having  a  walk." 

"Oh,  but  you  can't  take  me  in  that  way !"  the  pallid  creature 
cried,  wringing  his  hands.  "I  can  see  you're  frightened  about 
mother !" 

"I'm  not,"  said  Richard  vehemently. 

"You  needn't  try  to  fool  me.  I'm  stupid  about  everything 
else,  but  not  about  mother !  And  I  could  always  feel  what  was 
going  on  between  you  two.  Many's  the  time  I've  had  to  leave 
the  room  because  you  two  were  loving  each  other  so  and  I 
felt  out  of  it.  And  now  I  know  you're  frightened  about  her ! 
You  are!  You  are!" 

"I'm  not !"  shouted  Richard. 

Roger  shrank  back  towards  Poppy,  who  seemed  to  like  the 
loud  noise,  and  had  raised  eyes  skimmed  of  their  sullenness  by 
delight.  "If  you'd  got  Jesus,"  he  said  tartly,  "you'd  learn  to 
be  gentle.  Like  He  was."  He  recovered  confidence  by  squeez- 
ing Poppy's  hand,  which  she  tendered  him  deceitfully,  looking 
at  Richard  the  while  as  if  she  were  waiting  for  orders.  "Now 
you'd  better  tell  me  what  it  is  about  mother  that's  making  you 
frightened.  She'd  not  be  pleased,  would  she,  if  she  came  in 
and  found  you  treating  me  like  this,  as  if  I  hadn't  a  right  to 
know  anything  about  her,  and  me  her  own  son  just  as  much 
as  you  are?" 

That  argument  moved  Richard,  Ellen  could  see.  He  looked 
down  at  his  white  knuckles  and  unclenched  his  hands.  "It's 
really  nothing,"  he  told  Roger  in  that  false,  kind  voice.  "I 
went  upstairs  after  dinner  to  look  over  some  papers  for  mother 
and  left  her  and  Ellen  down  here.  When  I  came  back  Ellen 
told  me  she'd  gone  out  for  a  walk  on  the  marshes.  It  struck 
me  as  rather  an  odd  thing  for  her  to  do  at  this  hour,  so  we 
went  out  and  had  a  look  round,  but  couldn't  see  her  anywhere. 
There's  not  the  slightest  occasion  for  worry." 

Roger  stared  at  him,  sucking  his  front  teeth.  "But  you're 
frightened!"  he  said  explosively. 

"I  am  not." 

"You  are.  You  think  she's  come  to  some  harm  down  on  the 
marshes."  He  slipped  past  him  and  flung  open  the  French 


474  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

window,  calling  in  a  thin,  whistling  voice  that  could  not  have 
been  heard  fifty  yards  away :  "Mummie !  Mummie !" 

A  convulsion  of  rage  ran  through  Richard.  With  one  hand 
he  jerked  Roger  back  into  the  room  by  his  coat-collar,  with 
the  other  he  slammed  the  French  window.  "Be  quiet.  I  tell 
you  she's  all  right.  I  know  where  she's  gone." 

"Where,  then?" 

"Never  mind." 

"Where?  Where?"  His  hands  fumbled  for  the  door- 
handle again. 

"Oh,  stop  that!"  Richard  loosed  hold  of  him  with  the  ex- 
pression of  one  who  had  grasped  what  he  thought  to  be  soft 
grass  and  finds  his  palms  scored  by  a  fibrous  stalk.  He  said, 
and  Ellen  could  see  that  he  liked  saying  it  as  little  as  anything 
that  he  had  ever  said  all  his  life  long:  "If  you  must  know,  I 
think  she's  gone  up  to  my  father's  tomb." 

Roger  shook  his  head  solemnly.  "No.  You're  wrong.  She 
hasn't  gone  there.  And  she's  come  to  harm." 

"Why  in  God's  name  do  you  say  that?"  burst  out  Richard. 

"I  know.  I've  known  all  the  evening.  That's  really  why 
I  came  back  here  after  the  service.  That  talk  about  forgive- 
ness was  just  something  I  made  up  as  an  excuse.  I  knew  quite 
well  that  something  was  wrong  with  mummie."  His  pale  eyes 
sought  first  Richard  and  then  Ellen.  "Don't  you  believe  a 
person  might  know  if  something  happened  to  another  person," 
he  asked  wistfully,  "if  they  loved  them  enough?" 

There  was  indeed  such  an  infinity  of  love  in  that  weak  gaze 
that  Richard  and  Ellen  exchanged  the  abashed  look  that  passes 
between  lovers  when  it  is  brought  to  their  notice  that  they  are 
not  the  sole  practitioners  of  the  spiritual  art.  Richard  mur- 
mured "Oh  .  .  .  perhaps  .  .  .  but  really,  Roger,  she  was  quite 
bright  before  she  went  out.  Ellen,  tell  Roger.  .  .  ." 

But  Roger  stared  out  at  the  empty  silver  garden  and  whim- 
pered inattentively :  "I  can't  help  it.  I  want  to  go  down  to  the 
marshes  and  look  for  her." 

"Very  well,"  agreed  Richard,  blinking.  The  sight  of  the 
love  in  those  weak  eyes  made  his  voice  authentically  kind. 
"We'll  go  down.  She  ought  to  be  easy  to  find  as  she's  carrying 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  475 

a  lantern.  You're  quite  sure  she  has  got  a  lantern  with  her, 
Ellen?" 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Ellen.  "It  bumped  against  the  glass  when 
she  came  back  and  looked  through  the  window." 

"When  she  came  back  and  looked  through  the  window? 
What  do  you  mean?" 

"Why,"  Ellen  explained  diffidently,  not  wanting  to  enlarge 
on  his  mother's  eccentricity.  "She  said  good-bye  and  went  out 
and  shut  the  door.  Then  in  a  minute  or  two  I  looked  up  and 
saw  her  face  against  the  glass.  ...  I  offered  to  open  the  door, 
but  she  shook  her  head  and  went  away." 

"But,  Ellen !  Didn't  that  srike  you  as  very  strange  ?"  She 
stared  in  amazement  that  his  eyes  could  look  into  hers  like 
this.  He  choked  back  a  reproach.  "Ellen  .  .  .  tell  me  every- 
thing .  .  .  everything  she  said  before  she  went  out." 

She  passed  her  hand  over  her  forehead,  shading  her  face. 
It  shamed  her  that  he  was  going  to  be  interested  in  what  she 
told  him  and  not  at  all  in  her  manner  of  telling  it.  "I've  told 
you.  She  was  full  of  plans  about  us  all  going  up  to-morrow. 
To  a  theatre.  And  she  sent  for  the  cook  and  talked  to  her 
about  saucepans." 

"What  saucepans?" 

"Aluminium  saucepans." 

"But  what  about  them?" 

She  laughed  aloud  in  the  face  of  his  displeasure.  An  image 
of  the  temple  in  the  wood  mocked  her  mind's  eye.  Instead  of 
standing  in  one  of  the  narrow  chambers  of  shadow  that  lay 
behind  its  pillars  with  his  lips  on  hers,  she  was  being  cross- 
examined  about  saucepans.  "She  reckoned  to  get  them  in  the 
forenoon  before  we  went  to  the  theatre." 

For  a  second  he  pondered  it;  then  asked  with  an  accent 
that  pierced  her  because  it  was  so  infantine,  so  shamelessly 
mendicant  of  comfort :  "She  really  was  all  right,  Ellen  ?" 

"Cross  my  heart,  Richard,  she  was  that." 

Their  hands  stole  into  one  another's;  from  the  warm,  flut- 
tering pressure  of  his  fingers  she  knew  that  his  heart  was 
feeling  numberless  adoring  things  about  her.  If  everything 
had  not  happened  as  she  wished,  it  was  not  because  the  dispen- 


476  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

sation  of  love  had  come  to  an  end,  but  because  it  had  not  en- 
dured long  enough.  There  was  a  golden  age  ahead.  She  leaned 
towards  him,  but  was  arrested  by  the  change  in  his  expression. 
His  face,  which  had  been  a  white  mask  of  grief,  became  vul- 
pine. "Yes,  she  will  most  probably  be  up  there  ...  at  his 
tomb.  .  .  ." 

Roger,  behind  him  at  the  window,  fluted  miserably :  "Mum- 
mie !  Mummie !"  He  turned  on  him  with  a  gesture  of  irrita- 
tion and  opened  the  door.  "Here,  Roger,  let's  go  now."  The 
glance  he  shot  backwards  into  the  room  was  so  preoccupied 
that  it  held  no  more  intimate  message  for  Ellen  than  for  Poppy. 
"Well,  I  don't  expect  we'll  be  long.  .  .  ." 

They  crossed  the  lawn,  their  short  shadows  treading  it  more 
gaily  than  their  tall,  striding  selves.  There  seemed  to  be  some 
mishap  at  the  gate  into  the  orchard.  Apparently  Roger  squeezed 
his  ringer  in  the  hinge;  but  he  was  very  brave.  The  two 
women  stood  at  the  window  and  watched  him  hop  about, 
shaking  the  injured  hand,  while  his  shadow  parodied  him,  and 
Richard  waited  with  a  stoop  of  the  shoulders  that  meant  pa- 
tience and  hatred.  Then  again  the  silver  garden  was  empty. 

Poppy  and  Ellen  went  and  sat  down  at  the  hearth;  and 
Poppy  said  with  an  extravagant  bitterness:  "Well,  that's  that. 
He  knows  as  well  as  I  do  that  the  Army  expects  us  officers 
to  be  in  by  eleven." 

"No  doubt  Mr.  Yaverland'll  go  round  in  the  morning  and 
explain  the  exceptional  circumstances,"  murmured  Ellen. 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  care.  I'm  fed  to  the  teeth  with  the  Army, 
fed  to  the  teeth.  .  .  ."  She  stared  into  the  fire  as  if  she  saw  a 
picture  there,  and  drew  a  little  tin  box  from  her  pocket  and 
offered  it  to  Ellen,  saying :  "Take  one.  They're  violet  cachous." 
Sucking  one,  she  sat  forward  with  her  feet  in  the  fender  and 
her  head  near  her  knees  until,  as  if  the  flavour  of  the  sweet  in 
her  mouth  was  reminding  her  of  a  time  when  life  was  less 
flavourless  than  now,  she  started  up  and  began  to  walk  rest- 
lessly about  the  room.  She  halted  at  the  window  and  asked 
thickly:  "That  place  over  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Where 
there's  a  glow  in  the  sky.  Is  that  Chatham?" 

With  awe,  with  the  lifting  of  the  hair,  the  chilling  of  the  skin 
that  those  suffer  who  see  the  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy,  Ellen 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  477 

remembered  what  Marion  had  said  that  afternoon  about  the 
handsome  young  sailor  in  Chatham  High  Street.  She  mur- 
mured tremulously:  "I  think  Richard  said  it  was." 

"Ah,  Chatham's  a  nice  place,"  said  Poppy  in  a  surly  voice. 
She  pressed  her  face  against  the  glass  like  a  beast  looking  out 
of  its  cage.  It  was  quite  certain,  as  the  silence  endured,  that 
she  wept. 

Then  Marion  had  been  right.  A  wave  of  terror  washed  over 
Ellen.  What  chance  had  she  of  playing  any  part  on  a  stage 
where  there  moved  this  woman  of  genius,  who  was  so  creative 
that  she  had  made  Richard,  and  so  wise  that  she  could  see 
through  the  brick  wall  of  this  girl's  brutishness?  She  stam- 
mered, "Well,  good-night,  I'll  away  to  my  bed/'  and  ran  up- 
stairs to  her  room  and  undressed  furiously,  letting  her  clothes 
fall  here  and  there  on  the  floor.  In  the  first  moments  after 
she  turned  out  the  lights  the  darkness  was  brightly  painted 
with  pictures  of  the  moonlit  temple;  one  everywhere  she 
turned  her  eyes.  And  once,  when  she  was  far  gone  into 
drowsiness,  she  woke  herself  by  sitting  up  in  bed  and  crying 
acidly:  "And  do  you  think  we  will  have  to  spend  every  night 
searching  for  your  mother,  Richard  ?"  But  very  soon  she  slept. 

She  woke  suddenly  and  with  her  mind  at  attention,  as  if 
someone  had  whispered  into  her  ear.  She  sat  up  and  looked 
through  the  great  window  into  that  not  quite  full-bodied  light 
of  a  day  that  was  overcast  and  advanced  past  its  dawn  only  by 
an  hour  or  two.  There  was  no  one  in  the  farmyard.  Yet  it 
came  back  to  her  that  she  had  been  called  by  the  sound  of  men's 
voices ;  of  Richard's  voice,  she  could  be  almost  sure,  for  there 
was  a  filament  of  pleasure  trailing  across  her  consciousness. 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  be  out  of  doors  at  this 
hour,  before  the  family  had  been  called  to  breakfast,  unless  the 
search  for  Marion  had  been  unsuccessful.  She  jumped  out  of 
bed  and  washed  and  dressed  and  ran  downstairs,  leaving  her 
hair  loose  about  her  shoulders  because  she  begrudged  the  time 
for  pinning  it  when  he  needed  her  comfort.  Mabel,  the  par- 
lour-maid, was  coming  out  of  the  dining-room  with  an  empty 
tray  in  her  hand.  One  corner  of  her  apron-bib  flapped  loose 
and  there  was  a  smut  on  her  face.  Ellen  knew  that  Marion 
had  not  been  found,  for  if  she  had  been  in  the  house,  alive  or 


478  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

dead,  the  girl  would  not  have  dared  to  look  like  that.  They 
passed  in  silence,  but  exchanged  a  look  of  horror. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  dining-room  but  Roger  and  Poppy. 
Poppy  was  sitting  in  an  armchair  at  the  hearth,  where  she  had 
evidently  spent  the  night.  Her  uniform  was  unbuttoned  half- 
way down  her  square  bust ;  and  on  the  arms  of  the  chair  there 
rested  two  objects  that  looked  like  sections  of  dried  viscera, 
but  which  Ellen  remembered  to  have  seen  labelled  as  pads  in 
hair-dressers'  windows.  Roger  was  kneeling  before  her,  his 
head  on  her  lap,  and  weeping  bitterly.  She  was  stroking  his 
hair  kindly  enough,  though  her  eyes  were  dwelling  on  the  tea- 
pot and  ham  on  the  breakfast-table.  The  French  window  was 
swinging  open,  admitting  air  that  had  the  chill  of  dawn  upon 
it;  and  outside  on  the  gravel  path  stood  Richard,  listening  to 
a  bearded  old  fisherman  in  oilskins.  She  hovered  about  the 
threshold  and  heard  the  old  man  saying :  "  'Tes  no  question  o' 
you  putting  yourselves  about  to  look  for  her  now.  Mostly 
you  don't  hear  nothin'  of  them  for  three  weeks,  and  then  they 
comes  out  where  they  went  in.  Till  the  tide  brings  them  back 
you  can't  fetch  them."  Richard  said:  "Yes,  yes,"  and  held 
out  money  to  him.  She  saw  he  wanted  to  send  the  fisherman 
away,  that  he  could  not  bear  to  hear  these  things ;  but  he  was 
held  rigid  by  the  obsession,  which  he  and  Marion  had  followed 
as  if  it  were  a  law,  that  one  must  not  betray  emotion.  His  in- 
hibited hand  became  more  and  more  talonlike,  more  and  more 
incapable  of  making  the  gesture  of  dismissal.  To  aid  him  Ellen 
showed  herself  at  the  open  door  in  her  wildness  of  loose  hair 
and  called:  "Richard!  Richard!" 

That  made  the  old  man  take  his  money  and  go  away,  and 
Richard  stepped  back  into  the  room.  He  evaded  her  embrace. 
"This  ghastly  light!"  he  muttered,  and  went  to  the  corner  of 
the  room  and  turned  on  the  electric  switch.  Then  he  let  her 
take  his  old,  grief -patterned  face  between  her  hands. 

"My  dear,  my  dear,  what  has  happened?" 

"There's  a  place  .  .  .  there's  a  place  .  .  .  there's  a  place  on 
the  sea-wall.  .  .  ."  He  drew  his  hand  across  his  forehead. 
"He  is  finding  it  difficult,"  her  heart  told  her  sadly,  "to  explain 
it  to  a  stranger."  "In  the  train,  when  you  came,  you  must 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  479 

have  seen  a  brick-kiln  ...  on  the  right  of  the  railway  .  .  . 
deserted.  ...  A  trolley-line  runs  from  there  over  a  bridge  to 
the  sea-wall  ...  to  a  jetty.  It  hasn't  been  used  for  years. 
The  planks  are  half  of  them  rotted  away.  The  high  tide  runs 
right  up  among  the  piers.  We  found  her  lantern  down  there 
on  the  mud." 

Her  heart  sickened.  "Oh,  poor,  poor  Marion!"  she  wept, 
and  asked  foolishly,  incredulously,  as  if  in  hopes  of  finding  a 
flaw  in  the  story,  "But  when  did  you  find  the  lantern?" 

"An  hour  ago.  We  looked  for  her  last  night  till  two.  We 
went  all  the  way  along  to  Canfleet.  They  took  us  in  at  the 
signal-box  there.  Then  as  soon  as  it  was  light  we  walked  back 
along  the  sea-wall.  And  we  found  the  lantern.  Look,  it's 
out  on  the  lawn." 

They  gazed  at  the  dark  object  on  the  edge  of  the  grass  as 
if  at  any  moment  it  might  move  or  speak. 

"But,  my  dearest,  she  may  not  be  in  the  water!  She  may 
have  dropped  the  light  and  been  feared  to  go  further  without 
it,  and  gone  into  one  of  those  wee  byres  on  the  marshes  till  the 
morning,  and  not  have  wakened  yet!" 

He  laughed  sleepily,  softly.  "Yes,  certainly  she's  not  wak- 
ened yet." 

"But,  my  own  dear,  it  may  be  so !  She  may  be  with  us  at 
any  moment  now !" 

He  shook  his  head  obstinately.  "No.  She's  dead.  I  know 
she's  dead.  There's  something  like  silence  lying  over  every- 
thing. It  means  she's  dead." 

It  was  her  impulse  to  throw  her  arms  about  his  neck  and 
bid  him  weep  if  he  wished  on  her  breast,  but  feeling  his  still- 
ness, his  nearly  unbreathing  immobility,  she  kept  herself  from 
him.  To  those  who  fall  and  hurt  themselves  one  runs  with 
comfort ;  by  those  who  lie  dangerously  stricken  by  a  disease  one 
sits  and  waits. 

"Sit  down  and  take  a  bit  of  breakfast,"  she  bade  him  softly. 
He  sank  into  a  chair  at  the  table,  lumpishly,  as  if  his  limbs  had 
grown  thick  and  lithic,  while  she  poured  out  a  cup  of  tea  and 
cut  some  ham.  Her  flesh  was  weeping  for  Marion,  who  had 
been  quick,  who  now  was  dead ;  but  the  core  of  her  was  a  void. 


480  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

She  cut  him  a  nice  feathery  slice,  unbroken  all  the  way  from 
the  bone  to  the  outer  rim  of  bread-crumb-freckled  fat;  and 
through  the  void  there  shot  the  thought,  trivial  yet  tremen- 
dously exultant :  "Now  that  Marion  is  gone  I  shall  always  look 
after  his  food."  He  drew  his  brows  together  and  groaned 
softly.  Hawkishly  she  looked  round  to  see  what  was  distress- 
ing him.  It  was,  of  course,  Roger  howling  in  Poppy's  lap. 
.  .  .  "Oh,  my  darling  mummie!"  It  must  be  stopped. 

"Roger,"  she  said  kindly,  "sit  forward  for  your  breakfast." 

He  raised  a  dispirited  nose,  red  with  weeping,  and  shook  his 
head  mournfully.  "No,  thank  you.  It  wouldn't  be  of  any  use. 
I  couldn't  keep  a  thing  on  my  stomach." 

"But  what  about  Miss  Poppy?"  she  asked  guilefully.  "She 
must  be  wearying  for  her  breakfast  after  the  night  she's  spent 
in  that  chair." 

That  brought  him  off  his  feet,  as  she  had  known  it  would. 
"Oh,  poor  Poppy !"  he  cried.  "Oh,  poor  Poppy !"  and  led  her 
to  the  table. 

Richard  ate  and  drank  for  some  moments;  he  seemed  very 
hungry.  Then  he  laid  down  his  knife  and  fork  and  said : 
"Ellen,  when  your  mother  died  did  you  feel  like  this?  As  if 
.  .  .  the  walls  of  your  life  had  fallen  in?" 

"Yes,  yes,  my  love,  so  terribly  alone." 

"Alone,  alone,"  he  repeated.  "I  am  so  selfish.  I  can  think 
of  nothing  but  my  own  loneliness.  I  can't  think  of  her." 

"Well,  never  heed,  my  dear,  my  own  dear.  She  wouldn't 
want  you  to  worry." 

"Oh,  but  I  must  think  this  out !"  he  exclaimed  in  a  shocked, 
dreary  tone.  "It's  so  important.  .  .  ."  He  looked  up  at  the 
electric  light  and  grumbled:  "Oh,  that  damned  light  makes 
it  worse!"  and  rose  to  restore  the  room  to  the  sallowness  of 
the  morning. 

When  he  sat  down  again  he  would  not  eat,  but  leaned  his 
head  on  his  hands  and  his  elbows  on  the  table  and  watched  the 
other  two.  Poppy  was  saying  in  tones  half-maternal,  half- 
disagreeable:  "Eat  up  your  'am,  you  silly  cuckoo.  You  know 
if  you  don't  you'll  have  one  of  your  sick  turns,"  and  Roger 
was  obeying.  Tears  and  the  ham  collided  noisily  in  his  throat. 

Richard  withdrew  his  eyes  from  them  and  looked  secretively 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  481 

at  Ellen.  "She  killed  herself,  of  course,"  he  said  in  an  under- 
tone. 

"Oh  no !"  she  cried.    "Oh  no!" 

But  there  sounded  through  the  room  a  thunderclap  of  mem- 
ory. There  had  been  words  drawled  there  the  night  before 
that  now  detonated  in  Ellen's  mind.  .  .  .  "What  am  I  to  do, 
Ellen,  to  keep  my  sons  from  quarrelling  over  me?" 

"Oh  no !"  she  cried  again,  lest  he  should  take  notice  that  she 
was  deafened  and  dizzied  and  ask  why.  "Never  think  that  of 
her,  my  dearie." 

She  had  thought  the  woman  strident  and  hysterical  and 
thoughtless  for  persisting  in  her  plans  for  the  next  day  in  face 
of  her  own  faint,  barely  acquiescent  smiles,  and  a  poor,  feck- 
less, fashionless  housewife  for  thrusting  those  unwanted  sauce- 
pans on  the  cook.  But  these  had  been  alibis  she  had  sought  to 
establish  that  she  might  clear  her  soul  of  a  charge  of  lingering 
at  the  brink  of  dark  waters,  lest  Richard  should  understand  her 
sacrifice  and  grieve. 

"Her  heel  may  have  caught  in  the  rotting  wood,"  she  nearly 
shrieked,  so  that  he  should  not  overhear  the  thoughts  that 
rushed  in  on  her  silence.  "She  wore  high  heels  for  her 
age " 

That  was  why  Marion  had  come  back  and  looked  in  through 
the  window.  She  was  to  shed  one  by  one  the  shelters  that  pro- 
tected her  soul  from  the  chill  of  the  universe :  her  house,  her 
clothes,  her  flesh,  her  skeleton.  This  first  step  had  cost  her 
so  much  that  for  one  shuddering  moment  she  had  gone  back 
on  it. 

"And  things  looked  so  strange  last  night.  If  there  was  a 
skin  of  ice  on  the  wood  it'd  be  hard  to  tell  it  from  the  moonlit 
water.  .  .  ." 

Oh,  pitiful  dark  woman  that  had  stood  on  the  lawn  looking 
up  at  the  room  where  sat  her  son,  whom  she  would  never  see 
again.  "If  I  had  not  gone  to  the  window  then,"  thought  Ellen 
to  herself,  "she  might  have  looked  much  longer." 

"She  was  very  ugly  last  night,"  muttered  Richard.  "She 
was  always  ugly  when  she  was  unhappy." 

His  speculative  tone  made  her  perceive  that,  unlike  herself, 
he  did  not  know  for  certain  that  Marion  had  committed  sui- 


482  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

cide.  She  must  conceal  her  proofs,  bury  them  under  a  heap 
of  lying  counterproofs.  "My  dear,  you'd  never  think  it  if 
you'd  seen  her  last  night.  .  .  ." 

"Tell  me  everything.    All  she  did  after  I  went  upstairs." 

Grimly  she  remembered  the  former  rich  traffic  of  their 
minds.  Henceforward  he  would  do  nothing  but  ask  that  ques- 
tion; she  would  do  nothing  but  answer  it.  It  was  the  third 
time  she  had  told  this  story  in  the  twelve  hours.  "She  was  as 
bright  as  could  be.  Talked  of  going  to  a  theatre,  but  said  you 
cared  for  a  good  music-hall  as  much  as  anything.  .  .  ."  Her 
voice  was  thin,  as  liars'  voices  are.  Surely  he  must  notice  it 
and  feel  distaste.  Oh,  fatal  Marion !  Even  in  her  complete 
and  final  abnegation  of  her  forcefulness  she  had  used  such  an 
excess  of  force  that  the  world  about  her  was  shattered.  For 
Ellen  perceived  that  never  again  would  the  relationship  of 
Richard  and  herself  be  the  perfect  crystal  sphere  that  it  had 
been  before  they  came  here,  but  must  always,  till  they  died, 
be  flawed  with  insincerity.  She  would  never  dare  tell  him  how, 
thought  over,  those  trivial  plans  for  the  next  day's  pleasuring 
were  revealed,  themselves,  as  devices  of  a  tremendous  ham- 
mering nobility;  how,  seen  with  the  intelligence  of  memory, 
the  face  at  the  window  had  been  the  greasy  mask  of  a  swim- 
mer in  the  icy  waters  of  the  ultimate  fear ;  how  there  had  stood 
on  the  lawn  for  a  long  time  what  had  seemed  a  loiterer,  but 
was  in  truth  a  pillar  of  love.  If  she  let  his  inherited  excessive- 
ness  learn  this  he  would  go  mad;  and  he  would  hate  her  for 
not  reading  these  signs  when  they  had  been  given  her.  All 
her  life  she  would  have  to  keep  silence  concerning  something 
of  which  he  would  speak  repeatedly.  She  would  become  queer 
and  jerky  with  strained  inhibitions  .  .  .  charmless.  .  .  .  Per- 
haps he  would  go  from  her  to  unburdened  women.  .  .  . 

"Perhaps  you're  right,"  he  said  wearily  when  she  had  fin- 
ished ;  "maybe  it  was  an  accident."  He  began  to  eat  again,  but 
soon  pushed  away  his  plate  and  stood  up  looking  down  on  the 
hearth.  "Where  did  she  sit?  Which  chair?" 

"Yon,  at  your  hand." 

He  drooped  over  it,  caressing  the  velvet  cover.  "Will  I 
ever  get  him  out  of  this  house,  where  everything  will  always 
remind  him  of  her?"  she  wondered  savagely.  Really  Marion 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  483 

was  magnificent,  but  she  was  very  upsetting.  She  was  like  a 
cardinal  in  full  robes  falling  downstairs.  And  for  what  in- 
adequate reason  she  had  caused  all  this  commotion!  Just  be- 
cause her  two  sons  quarrelled !  She  could  have  prevented  that 
easily  enough  if  she  had  brought  them  up  properly  and  skelped 
them  when  they  needed  it.  Ellen  curled  her  lip  as  she  watched  j 
him  stroking  the  soft  velvet,  laying  his  cheek  against  it. 

"And  the  desk  ?    You  say  she  sat  there  while  she  talked  to  - 
cook?" 

"Yes." 

She  hated  the  way  he  sat  down  in  front  of  it ;  in  a  heap,  like 
a  tired  navvy.  By  her  death  Marion  deprived  her  of  her 
beautiful  lightfooted  lover.  But  she  must  wait.  He  would 
come  back.  She  became  aware  that  Roger  was  speaking  to  her. 
It  appeared  that  he  had  sobbed  in  his  cup  and  had  sent  jets 
of  tea  flying  over  the  tablecloth,  and  he  was  now  apolo- 
gising. 

"Never  heed,"  she  told  him  comfortingly ;  "we'll  have  a  clean 
one  for  lunch."  "I  didn't  mean  to,"  he  quavered  piteously,  but 
she  checked  him.  Richard  had  turned  over  his  shoulder  a 
white  face. 

"She  sat  here?  .  .  ." 

"Yes.    While  the  cook  stood  talking  to  her,  she  sat  there." 

"She  .  .  .  You  didn't  notice  .  .  .  when  she  was  sitting 
there  ...  if  she  was  scribbling  on  the  blotter?" 

"Yes,  she  did.     I  noticed  that." 

"Ah  .  .  .  ah.  .  .  ." 

She  was  beside  him  in  the  time  of  a  breath.  But  he  had 
not  fainted,  though  his  head  had  crashed  down  on  the  wood, 
for  his  fingers,  buried  in  his  hair,  still  laced  and  interlaced. 
She  did  not  dare  touch  him ;  but  she  grovelled  for  the  blotter, 
which  at  the  moment  of  his  groan  had  fallen  to  the  floor,  and 
stood  staring  at  it.  For  a  second  her  attention  was  dispersed 
by  a  shudder  of  disgust,  for  she  felt  Roger's  noisy  mouth- 
breathing  at  her  ears.  Then  the  proof  leapt  to  her  eyes.  There 
was  a  rim  of  plain  paper  round  the  calendar  on  the  inside  of 
the  cover,  and  this  was  covered  with  words  and  phrases  writ- 
ten in  the  exquisite  small  script  of  Marion.  "This  is  the  end. 


484  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

Death.  Death.  Death.  This  is  the  end.  I  must  die.  Give 
him  to  Ellen.  I  must  die." 

Roger  tumbled  back  towards  Poppy.  "The  awful  sin  of 
self-destruction!"  he  wailed. 

This  proof  struck  through  her  with  an  awful,  unifying  grief. 
She  had  had  evidence  of  Marion's  intention  which  had  con- 
vinced her  mind,  but  it  was  all  derived  from  ugliness:  from 
the  awkwardness  of  the-  woman's  talk,  the  plainness  of  the 
face  against  the  glass,  the  intrusive  loitering  of  a  squat  figure 
in  the  garden.  The  soul  had  hearkened  to  these  ugly  messen- 
gers from  reality  since  it  had  desired  to  know  the  truth,  but 
it  had  made  them  cry  their  message  from  as  far  off  as  possible 
and  as  briefly  as  might  be.  But  this  lovely  black  arabesque 
of  letters  had  the  power  of  beauty.  It  ran  into  the  core  of  her 
soul  and  told  its  story  at  its  leisure.  Her  flesh,  which  before 
had  grieved  as  any  that  is  living  might  grieve  for  any  that  is 
dead,  now  knew  the  sorrow  appropriate  to  the  destruction  of 
Marion's  wide,  productive  body.  For  what  her  spirit  learned 
and  admitted  it  had  always  known  of  that  burning  thing  which 
had  been  Marion  she  looked  round  the  room  in  reverence, 
since  she  had  lived  there.  The  light  on  the  handle  of  the 
French  window  caught  her  eye,  and  she  wept.  She  had  been 
annoyed  with  Marion  because  she  could  not  turn  it.  But  who 
would  not  find  it  difficult  to  open  a  door  if  it  was  death  on 
which  it  opened? 

"Richard,  I  love  your  mother!"  she  sobbed.  "I  love  your 
mother  so !" 

He  muttered  something.  In  case  he  was  speaking  to  her 
she  bent  down  and  listened.  But  he  was  repeating  over  and 
over  again  in  accents  of  irony :  "Give  him  up-  to  Ellen.  Give 
him  up  to  Ellen.  Oh,  mother,  mother.  .  .  ." 

By  the  passion  for  Marion  that  was  wringing  her  she  could 
measure  the  flame  that  must  be  devouring  him.  There  was  a 
strong  impulse  in  her  to  feel  nothing  but  pity  for  him ;  to  ap- 
prehend with  resignation  that  there  might  be  a  period  ahead 
during  which  he  might  feel  hatred  for  her,  loathing  her  for 
being  alive  when  his  mother,  who  deserved  so  well,  was  dead. 
She  stepped  backward  from  the  desk  so  that  he  need  not  be 
vexed  by  any  sense  of  her.  Yet  she  had  a  feeling  as  she 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  485 

moved  that  she  was  taking  a  step  infinitely  rash,  infinitely 
dangerous.  .  .  . 

She  became  aware  that  behind  her  Roger  was  shaking  words 
out  of  his  weeping  body.  "You  ought  to  be  on  your  knees, 
you  two !  You've  killed  my  mummie  with  your  wickedness !" 

"What's  that?"  she  murmured,  turning  on  him.  "What's 
that?"  She  was  not  quite  attentive.  A  picture  was  forming 
in  her  consciousness  which,  when  it  was  clear,  would  tell  her 
why  it  was  perilous  to  leave  Richard  to  his  grief.  .  .  . 

"Aw,  shut  up!"  hissed  Poppy,  and  tugged  at  his  arm. 

But  he  faced  Ellen  bravely  and  cried:  "Yes,  youVe  killed 
my  mummie!  She  saw  there  was  something  wrong  going  on 
between  you  two.  She  found  out  what  you'd  been  doing  up 
there  in  the  bedroom  when  Poppy  and  me  caught  you.  It 
must  have  been  an  awful  shock  to  her.  It  was  to  me,"  he 
said  pathetically  and  with  relish.  "I  could  hardly  believe  it 
myself  till  Poppy  said,  'Well,  what  would  they  be  doing  to- 
gether in  a  bedroom  if  it  wasn't  that?'  How  could  you  do 
such  filthiness.  .  .  ." 

Shame  swept  over  Ellen's  body,  over  Ellen's  mind.  It  was 
not  sexual  shame,  but  shame  that  they  should  both  be  human, 
she  and  this.  But  when  she  turned  her  eyes  away  from  him 
in  loathing  she  came  on  something  far  worse  in  Poppy's  florid 
and  skull-like  face.  It  would  have  been  appalling  if  she  had 
been  quite  attentive,  but  she  was  dreamy,  because  there  was 
this  picture  forming  in  her  consciousness  which  would  explain 
the  danger  to  her.  .  .  .  Round  Poppy's  eyes  and  mouth  there 
was  playing  a  thirsty  look  which  she  seemed  to  be  trying  to 
suppress,  for  she  was  glancing  about  the  room  with  an  expres- 
sion of  prudence  as  if  she  were  reminding  herself  that  not 
lightly  must  she  run  the  risk  of  being  evicted  from  this  com- 
fort. But  the  thirst  triumphed.  She  gave  herself  the  gratifica- 
tion she  had  desired,  and  turned  on  Ellen  eyes  on  whose  dull 
darkness  there  floated  like  oil  a  glistening  look  of  lewd  ac- 
cusation. It  tock  the  form  of  a  wet,  twitching  smile.  But 
behind  it  was  every  sort  of  beaten,  desolate  envy:  the  envy 
of  the  happy  which  is  felt  by  the  unhappy:  the  envy  of  the 
woman  who  has  a  strong  and  glorious  man  which  is  felt  by 
the  woman  who  cannot  disguise  from  herself  that  in  her  arms 


486  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

lies  weakness  and  ignobility:  the  envy  of  one  to  whom  love 
has  come  as  love  which  is  felt  by  one  to  whom  it  has  come  as 
a  deception  and  a  sentence  to  squalor.  And  she  could  not  be 
pitied.  One  cannot  weep  over  the  dead  when  they  have  begun 
to  rot:  and  she  was  rotten  with  resentments.  Ellen  stared  at 
her  in  anger  and  in  misery  that  there  should  be  one  so  sad 
and  ill-used  whom  she  could  not  comfort;  and  perceived  why 
at  seeing  her  she  had  been  reminded  of  an  open  space  round 
which  stood  figures.  It  was  of  nothing  in  art  she  had  been 
thinking,  but  of  John  Square  in  Edinburgh,  where  after  night- 
fall women  had  leaned  against  the  garden  railings,  their  backs 
to  the  lovely  nocturnal  mystery  of  groves  and  lawns,  their 
faces  turned  to  the  line  of  rich  men's  houses  which  mounted 
into  the  night  like  tall,  impregnable  fortresses.  If  she  had 
not  been  preoccupied  with  the  picture  rising  in  her  mind  she 
would  have  felt  fear,  for  the  ultimate  meaning  of  those  women 
she  had  always  suspected  to  be  danger.  .  .  . 

"Making  me  think  evil  of  my  poor  mummie  too!"  Roger 
sobbed  on.  "I  thought  the  reason  she  didn't  come  to  my  meet- 
ing this  evening  was  that  she  was  ashamed  to  see  her  son 
professing  Jesus.  I  thought  hardly  of  her  for  not  bringing 
you  two  along  as  she  promised,  because  I  didn't  see  you  weren't 
there,  and  I  preached  on  the  sin  of  impurity  specially  for  you, 
and  it  was  a  real  sacrifice  for  me  to  do  it,  because  the  officers 
thought  it  was  a  forward  subject  for  me  to  choose,  and  it  my 
first  service  here.  I  had  to  wrestle  to  forgive  her  for  it." 

It  was  growing  clearer  in  Ellen's  mind,  this  picture  which 
would  tell  her  why  she  must  not  allow  Richard  to  abandon 
himself  to  his  grief,  to  his  passion. 

"But,  of  course,  I  see  it  all  now.  Oh,  my  darling,  darling 
mummie!  I  suppose  you  two  wouldn't  come  to  my  meeting 
because  you  wanted  to  stay  here  and  play  your  tricks,  and  she 
saw  through  you  and  wouldn't  leave  you  alone  in  the  house. 
To  think  I  blamed  my  mummie!" 

Now  she  saw  the  picture.  It  was  her  own  mother,  her  own 
old  mother,  shuffling  about  the  kitchen  in  Hume  Park  Square 
in  the  dirty  light  of  the  unwarmed  morning;  poking  forward 
into  the  grate  with  hands  on  which  housework  had  acted  like 
a  skin  disease ;  pulling  her  flannel  dressing-gown  about  a  body 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  487 

which  poverty  and  neglect  had  made  as  ugly  as  the  time,  the 
place,  the  task.  She  was  too  tired  to  see  it  vividly,  but  she 
understood  the  message.  That  was  what  happened  to  women 
who  allowed  themselves  to  be  disregarded;  who  allowed  any 
other  than  themselves  to  dwell  in  their  men's  attention. 

"Richard!  Richard!"  She  beat  on  his  shoulder  to  make 
him  listen.  "Hark  what  your  brother's  saying  of  us !" 

He  stirred.    He  sat  up. 

"He  says  we're  bad." 

He  turned  round  and  looked  down  on  Roger.  At  the  sight 
of  his  face,  though  it  was  still,  Ellen  wished  she  had  not  roused 
him. 

"It's  no  use  you  looking  at  me  like  that,"  said  Roger  tear- 
fully but  resolutely.  "I'm  as  good  as  you.  In  fact,  I'm  better 
now  that  I've  got  Jesus.  And  I  tell  you  straight,  you've  killed 
my  mummie  with  your  beastly  lust.  Mind  you,"  he  cried,  in 
a  tone  of  whistling  exaltation  inappropriate  to  his  words,  "I'm 
not  pretending  I'm  without  sin  myself.  I  did  evil  once  with 
a  woman  at  Blackburn,  but  I  saw  the  filthiness  of  my  ways. 
Old  man,  I  do  understand  your  temptations !" 

What  was  Richard's  hand  searching  for  on  the  breakfast 
table?  She  bent  forward  to  see,  so  that  she  might  give  it 
to  him. 

Richard  had  found  what  he  wanted.  His  ringers  tightened 
on  the  handle  of  the  breadknife. 

"Let's  put  an  end  to  this,"  he  said. 

He  drove  the  knife  into  Roger's  heart. 

"Mummie!"  breathed  Roger.  Meekly,  but  with  no  sign 
that  he  had  any  other  quarrel  with  the  proceedings  save  that 
they  were  peremptory,  he  sank  down  on  the  chair  beside  him 
and  fell  forward,  his  head  lying  untidily  among  the  tea-cups. 
This,  no  doubt,  was  the  disorder  which  Marion  had  always 
foreseen;  to  prevent  which  she  had  practised  her  insane  tidi- 
ness. 

He  held  the  attention  much  less  than  one  had  thought  a 
dead  man  could. 

"God,"  said  Poppy,  "this  is  a  copper's  business.  I'm  off 
before  they  come.  They  think  I  know  something  about  a 
thing  that  happened  down  in  Strood  last  Easter,  though  God 


488  THE  JUDGE  BOOK  TWO 

help  me  I  don't.  They  kind  of  mixed  me  up  with  someone  else. 
Let  me  go." 

"Right,"  said  Richard,  and  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket  and 
brought  out  a  fistful  of  coins.  "Take  this.  Good  luck." 

She  snatched  it,  and  with  no  further  look  at  any  of  the 
company,  ran  out  by  the  French  window. 

They  stood  looking  down  on  Roger.  Death  revealed  no 
significance  in  him.  The  smallness  of  his  head,  the  indefinite 
colour  of  his  hair,  palliated  what  had  occurred  and  made  them 
feel  incredulous  of  their  knowledge  that  presently  much  im- 
portance would  be  attached  to  it. 

Richard  breathed  a  deep  sigh  of  relief.  "Well,  it's  all 
cleared  up  now,"  he  murmured.  "It  is  as  if  she  had  never 
seen  Peacey.  .  .  ." 

Ellen  broke  into  sobs.  "  'Tis  I  who  made  you  do  it.  I 
thought  of  my  poor  mother  and  how  she'd  suffered  through 
not  making  my  father  think  of  her  first  and  last — and  you 
were  sitting  there  thinking  of  nothing  but  Marion — and  I 
knew  if  you  heard  what  Roger  was  saying  about  us  you'd 
think  of  me,  so  I  made  you  listen.  If  I  hadn't  given  you  yon 
dunts  on  your  shoulders  you  never  would  have  heard  him  and 
never  would  have  killed  him.  Oh,  my  love,  what  I  have  done 
to  you,  and  me  that  would  have  died  rather  than  hurt  you! 
But  I  saw  my  mother  plain " 

"Oh,  between  our  mothers  .  .  ."  he  said  wearily,  and  hushed 
her  in  his  arms.  Bitterly  he  broke  out:  "If  we  could  have 
lived  our  own  lives!" 

"My  love,  my  love,  don't  spoil  our  little  time  together.  .  .  ." 

"But  there's  nothing  left." 

"There's  nothing  left,  Richard,  so  go  on  kissing  me." 

"Wait."  He  drew  away  from  her  and  held  up  his  fore- 
finger. "There's  something  still." 

He  looked,  Ellen  thought,  very  like  Marion  as  he  stood  there, 
his  eyes  roving  about  her  face.  Because  his  shoulders  were 
bowed  his  body  looked  thick  like  a  tree-trunk ;  his  swarthiness 
had  the  darkness  of  earth  in  it  and  the  gold  of  ripe  corn;  and 
his  gaze  lay  like  a  yoke  on  its  object. 

"There's  something  still,"  he  whispered.  A  sudden  joy 
flamed  in  him. 


CHAPTER  x  THE  JUDGE  489 

There  came  over  him  another  aspect  of  Marion.  He  looked 
awkward  and  contemptuous,  as  she  had  done  when  she  had  told 
Ellen  how  in  Richard's  infancy  she  had  been  obliged  to  be  nice 
to  people  whom  she  did  not  like  for  the  sake  of  a  placid  social 
atmosphere.  He  muttered,  'Til  go  to  the  kitchen  .  .  .  tell  the 
servants  that  Roger's  fallen  asleep  .  .  .  they're  not  to  disturb 
him.  .  .  .  That'll  .  .  .  give  us  time.  .  .  ." 

At  the  door  he  turned. 

"You're  not  afraid?"    He  pointed  to  the  dead  man. 

She  shook  her  head  and  he  went  on  his  errand.  With  a 
sense  of  leisure,  as  if  she  had  strayed  into  a  cul-de-sac  of  time, 
and  since  there  is  no  going  backwards  must  stay  there  for  ever, 
she  sat  down  and  looked  about  her.  Roger  did  not  frighten 
her  at  all.  If  his  spirit  was  in  the  room  it  was  sickly  and  in- 
nocuous, like  the  smell  of  a  peardrop.  But  the  horror  of  all 
that  had  happened  to  her,  and  its  refusal  to  be  anything  but 
horror,  viewed  from  whatever  aspect,  had  begun  to  be  agony 
when  there  broke  on  her  that  which  is  the  reward  of  tragedy. 
She  perceived  the  miraculous  beauty  of  the  common  lot.  Men 
and  women  taking  children  home  in  trams  .  .  .  people  on  sum- 
mer afternoons  going  into  the  country  in  brakes  .  .  .  that 
wedding-party  she  and  her  mother  had  seen  long  ago  dancing 
by  the  River  Almond,  led  by  a  bride  and  bridegroom  middle- 
aged  but  gravely  glad.  .  .  .  Ah,  that  wedding-party.  .  .  .  She 
wept,  she  wept. 

He  had  returned  to  the  room,  and  was  holding  open  the 
French  window. 

"Come,"  he  said.    "Come." 


CHAPTER  XI 

SURELY,  surely  he  was  asking  too  much  of  her?  .  .  . 
Yet  he  had  felt  no  doubt  that  she  would  comply.  There 
had  been  indeed  no  tinge  of  supplication  in  his  bearing  when 
he  had  halted  with  her  on  the  seaward  slope  of  the  sea-wall 
and  pointed  to  the  other  wall  on  the  further  side  of  the  creek, 
and  he  had  told  her  that  on  the  island  it  confined  there  was 
a  hut  which  the  cattlemen  used  when  the  herds  pastured  there ; 
where  there  would  be  a  store  of  furze  with  which  they  could 
build  a  fire ;  where  they  could  be  safe  until  the  people  came  to 
take  him.  Rather  had  he  spoken  triumphantly,  as  if  he  had 
found  a  hidden  staircase  leading  out  of  destiny.  And  when 
he  left  her  to  see  if  they  could  bribe  the  fishermen  who  were 
painting  the  keel  of  a  boat  on  the  grass  two  hundred  yards 
away  to  hand  over  their  waders,  so  that  he  and  she  might  walk 
across  dryshod  to  the  island,  he  did  not  look  over  his  shoulder, 
but  walked  straight  ahead,  utterly  confident  that  she  would  be 
there  when  he  returned. 

But  surely  this  was  far  too  much  to  ask  of  her,  who  had 
learned  what  life  was;  who  knew  that,  though  life  at  its  be- 
ginning was  lovely  as  a  corn  of  wheat,  it  was  ground  down  to 
flour  that  must  make  bitter  bread  between  two  human  ten- 
dencies: the  insane  sexual  caprice  of  men,  the  not  less  mad 
excessive  steadfastness  of  women.  Roger  had  died,  Richard 
was  about  to  die,  because  of  the  grinding  together  of  these 
male  and  female  faults — Harry  and  Marion  .  .  .  Poppy  and 
her  sailor  .  .  .  her  own  mother  and  father.  .  .  .  And  love, 
which  she  had  trusted  to  resolve  all  life's  disharmonies,  was 
either  ineffectual  or  dangerous.  Her  love  had  not  been  able 
to  reach  Richard  across  the  dark  waters  of  his  mother's  love; 
and  how  like  a  doom  that  love  had  lain  on  him.  .  .  .  Since 
life  was  like  this,  she  would  not  do  what  Richard  asked.  She 
tried  to  rise  that  she  might  flee  from  him,  from  these  marshes, 
back  to  the  hills  where  the  red  roofs  of  safe  human  houses 
showed  among  the  tended  fields. 

490 


CHAPTER  xi  THE  JUDGE  491 

But  she  could  not  move.  Although  her  mind  was  still 
arguing  the  matter,  all  the  rest  of  her  being  had  consented. 
She  was  going  to  do  this  thing.  In  panic  she  looked  along  the 
wall  at  Richard,  wishing  he  would  come  back  to  her.  But  he 
was  going  on  talking  to  the  fishermen,  though  he  held  their 
waders  in  his  hand.  She  quite  understood  why  he  was  doing 
that,  and  watched  him  through  tears.  This  was  the  last  time 
he  would  be  able  to  exercise  that  charm  of  which  he  was  a 
little  vain,  since  on  all  his  few  future  days  his  intercourse 
with  his  fellows  would  be  strictly  specialised ;  so  he  was  taking 
the  opportunity.  In  watching  him  and  the  reflection  of  his 
magnificence  in  the  fishermen's  smiling  subjugation,  she  was 
shot  through  by  a  pang  of  pride  and  exultation.  Though  the 
night  should  engulf  Richard  and  Marion,  the  triumph  was  not 
with  the  night.  In  throwing  in  her  lot  with  them  and  with 
the  human  race  which  is  perpetually  defeated,  she  was  never- 
theless choosing  the  side  of  victory.  .  .  . 

She  leaned  back  against  the  slope  and  waited.  This  was  a 
good  place  to  wait.  The  call  of  the  redshanks,  the  cloud 
shadows  that  moved  over  the  marshes  like  the  footprints  of 
invisible  presences,  made  her  feel  calm. 

Nevertheless  her  heart  could  not  help  but  beat  quick  with 
fear.  She  wished  that  he  would  come  and  comfort  her.  But 
though  he  had  left  the  fishermen  he  was  not  coming  straight 
to  her.  He  had  climbed  the  sea-wall  and  was  looking  out  to 
the  east,  to  the  open  sea,  over  the  country  of  the  mud.  He 
was  thinking  of  Marion,  and  wondering  where  the  tide  had 
carried  her.  The  inexorable  womb  was  continuing  to  claim  its 
own.  She  wanted  to  start  up  and  cry  out  to  him  and  hail  him 
noisily  from  his  obsession;  but  something  in  the  place,  in  the 
call  of  the  redshanks,  in  the  procession  of  the  shadows,  re- 
minded her  that  when  she  had  cried  out  before  she  had  brought 
death  upon  her  lover.  This  quietness  was  the  safer  way.  She 
would  wait  patiently  until  he  came  to  make  his  exorbitant 
demand. 

She  sat  and  looked  at  the  island,  and  wondered  whether  it 
was  a  son  or  daughter  that  waited  for  her  there. 

THE   END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


JUN1    1057- 


REC'D 


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JUL6-J98877 


REC'D  LD 


AUG  11 


t& 


MAR  19  1962 


LD  21-100m-6,'56 
(B9311slO)476 


General  Library 

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